March of the Mayors heats up in north Mississippi
NORTH MISSISSIPPI (WCBI) – The Extra Tables March of the Mayor’s North Mississippi Food Drive is ramping up for its second year.
This is a statewide initiative in which cities in the area collect a particular food item from January 21 to February 21.
The mission is to help the hungry by filling local pantries and they partner with mayors to get communities involved.
It started on the Mississippi Gulf Coast during the COVID pandemic and moved north.
There was no Mardi Gras that year, and people wanted to help their neighbors.
Executive director Martha Allen Price says this is a fun, mission-strong event.
Allen says statewide, they plan to pack at least 10,000 boxes.
“When we designed these boxes and thought of what each mayor collects, Mayor Spruill in Starkville is collecting green beans. And she said, Martha, why green beans? And I said, ‘Because every kid that is eating in a cafeteria at school, they have green beans. That’s something that’s familiar to them something that’s comforting and something that so many of our children like,’ Allen said. “But each item in the box has meaning, has a purpose, and has a nutritional void that is filling. And these boxes make a great impact in supporting what our food pantries are doing. The food pantries that extra table partners with. In all of these communities. More people are fed because of the March of the Mayors.”
Citizens in Columbus can donate canned soup; Baldwyn can donate canned fruit; Caledonia can donate spaghetti noodles, canned tuna for Oxford; canned green beans in Starkville, peanut butter in Tupelo, and dried beans in West Point.
For drop-off locations or information on volunteering visit extratable.org/march.
The Food Box Packing Party is February 25th from 9 a.m. to noon at the Tupelo Furniture Market- complete with moon pies and mardi gras beads. The first 100 volunteers get a free t-shirt.
Atmos is sponsoring the initiative.
