Dawn Thomas of Columbus sounds a little winded as she answers questions about the food pantry she oversees at Stateline Baptist Church on Highway 82. It's understandable: she's unloading pantry food from a U-haul on break from her full time job as she speaks.
"I want to do so much more than I do," she said. "I want to scoop up every family that comes in and take them to the house to feed them, get their electricity cut back on and help them back on their feet. Instead I give them a hug and some food, pray with them and just listen."
Thomas is known as the fuel for the fire among the volunteers she leads. Four years ago she took a pantry that was literally just one cabinet of canned goods used to minister to mostly church members and turned the outreach into her mission.
The originators moved to another church in 2013. The pantry served 43 families their first week after Thomas took over as Share Center director early the next year.
The center now parcels out food the third Saturday of every month to needy from all over the state with no questionaires or strings attached. They assisted 304 families this month, or almost 800 individuals.
"I can't put into words how much work she's put into making this place grow," volunteer Leslie Dees said. "I've been here since the beginning, and her passion for serving rubs off on everyone here. Even those who come for help that first time can see that she's here for the right reasons the minute they meet her."
The build up began with one picture of the empty pantry posted to Facebook. Shortly after, Thomas and her friend Christi Yearby were invited to volunteer at nearby Pinelake Church in Starkville to learn the basics of running a full-scale food pantry.
Time in that larger ministry only spurred Thomas on further.
"She kind of volun-told me that this is what we need to do, and I followed that big heart of hers," said Yearby, a long time church friend. "When you hear these families talk about how they couldn't have made it through the month without that bag of food, you want to be part of how she's helping change lives here."
Thomas committed a local grocery chain to donating to the cause and signed the pantry on with the Mississippi Food Network, a part of Feeding America, to get discounted goods for the shelves. A local business even donated the U-Haul to transport the food to the pantry.
The service grew to a 7 freezer operation with two full rooms of food to distribute.
All this she accomplished while dealing with alcoholism in the family, trying to salvage her dissolving marriage of 22 years and solitarily paying for her two daughters to go to a private Christian school. Bringing the girls, especially her oldest, out to volunteer has become a family tradition and lesson in compassion.
"Until you hear a grandmother who gets $12 a month in food stamps talk about trying to feed the grandkids she's raising, you may think you have it bad. My problems are nothing," Thomas said. "It takes a lot when you're not used to taking help to ask for it. I just want to be able to help these people as much as we can and show my girls how to give whole-heartedly."
