On the second and last Saturday of each month, Pep Waites makes his way to the bingo hall parking lot at 8 o'clock in the morning. His job begins shortly afterwards as he directs the long parade of incoming cars into two lines. The folks in the cars show up as much as 4 hours early to receive food donations from the Community Food Pantry run by the Church of Nazarene of Piedmont.

The double-line of cars begins at one end of the bingo hall and by the time the volunteers have prepared the donations at noon the cars have often snaked their way clear back to the entrance at the highway.

Brandon Lane and his wife Sandy, both members of the church, started the food pantry in April of 2008. For Brandon, the seed had been planted after a trip to the coast to help area churches after the devastation from hurricane Katrina. While helping one such church, an older Holiness church that had been destroyed by the storm, he was overwhelmed to witness the church members, many of whom had lost their homes to the same storm, freely giving away food to others in need.

"Whenever I came back, I didn't really feel like I did anything for the Lord," Brandon said. "But I kept that in my heart."

The church partnered with the Isaiah 58 food ministry of the Word of Life Church in Coldwater. Isaiah supplies enough food for one of the two distributions the pantry does each month. The second distribution comes from donations by the congregation of the Church of Nazarene. To feed 400-plus families requires roughly $1,500 in donations, and time and time again the church digs deep and makes it happen.

"That right there is what makes this all happen," Brandon said, pointing to the volunteers as they assembled for a photo after a long, wet morning off loading cars and trucks with much need food. Rain or shine, they keep showing up to ensure folks in need don't go without.

They've noticed an increase in need in recent months. When Springs Industries closed its doors a little over a year ago many worker received unemployment. When that ran out, some got a twenty-six week extension.

"Whenever that last 26-week extension ran out, our line went up almost a hundred people," Brandon said. "Some of them were husbands and wives both working at the same place."

The folks in the cars wait patiently for their turn and everyone seems grateful for the work the church does.

Sadie Hurst, a former resident of the Piedmont Manor apartment complex, remembers taking donations from the pantry to some disabled and elderly residents of the Manor who couldn't make the drive themselves.

"They were always so excited to get those boxes," Sadie said. "They'd say 'look at what we got this time!' It was like Christmas for them. They really needed that food."

According to Sadie, many of those residents find it hard to make it on what little food stamps they receive. Often, the pantry gives cleaning supplies and paper products that can't be bought with food stamps. The pantry also purchases up to fourteen pallets a year of such goods from the Christian non-profit organization Feed the Children.

And the pantry never charges a dime, or asks for income information from any of the recipients. They only ask for a name and for the number of families each car is there to pick up for. Volunteers place a sticker in the windshield of each car so the folks giving out the food know how much to load.

The need keeps increasing. The church began by giving out food from its own parking lot, but they quickly discovered the number of cars that packed the lot and spilled out onto the road was causing a dangerous situation. They soon moved to their new location at the bingo hall, but even with the generosity of the bingo hall management, which allows them to store some food in one of the building's unused bays, they are in need of more storage.

"We'd like to be able to build a warehouse," Brandon said.

"Whenever Jesus was asking Peter 'Do you love me?' he said 'You know I love you' he then said 'feed my sheep' and that's what we just feel lead to do. Instead of just through words, we do it through action"

If you're in need of help, or you'd like to make a donation of either food or funds to help with the pantry and the building of their warehouse, you can reach Brandon and Sandy Lane at 256-447-8477.