Oxford Pantry Names Carol Wedge Volunteer of the Year After Two Decades

Carol Wedge was only supposed to help out in November and December. Two decades later, the 74-year-old is the one constant at The Pantry's monthly rotation of church-led volunteer teams, the coordinating manager who makes sure roughly 650 Lafayette County families keep receiving groceries regardless of which congregation shows up that week.

The Pantry honored Wedge as its Volunteer of the Year in March, a recognition that reached beyond a single name on a plaque. When Wedge started, she was a holiday fill-in; now she trains incoming managers, oversees distribution logistics, and carries the institutional knowledge that prevents each new team from reinventing operations from scratch.

"I started in November and December," Wedge said. "Now I'm here all year round."

Her path to Molly Barr Road ran through Oxford Church of Christ and North Oxford Baptist Church, where she first pitched in during the seasonal rushes that have always made late fall the organization's most demanding stretch. A former labor and delivery nurse who spent years at Baptist Memorial Hospital-North Mississippi after moving to Oxford with her late husband David in 1997, Wedge brought clinical discipline to the work. She stepped formally into the coordinating manager role about three years ago, though her commitment had taken root long before the title existed.

"It's just the way I was raised," she said. "Giving back was instilled on me early on."

The Pantry she helps run today bears little resemblance to the one she first entered. In 2020, COVID-19 drove a 30 percent surge in visitors, the largest single-year increase the organization had recorded, and forced a permanent shift to curbside, pre-bagged distribution: a model that protected client anonymity and absorbed volume more efficiently. By 2022, monthly need had climbed to 640 to 680 families, roughly 25 percent above pre-pandemic norms, and has since settled at approximately 650 families a month.

That number does not hold steady on its own. After Winter Storm Fern struck Lafayette County in January, The Pantry saw a temporary dip as emergency distributions from other organizations reached households first. But those same fluctuations expose the operation's reliance on continuity. When SNAP benefit disbursements faced potential disruption during last year's federal budget standoff, manager John Kohne watched families arrive who had never needed food assistance before, people who had quietly slipped below the line without warning.

Wedge's role is to make sure the Pantry absorbs those swings without losing stride. Because the organization's monthly volunteer managers rotate through local churches, the entire system depends on someone bridging the gaps between teams, passing along logistics, and keeping what volunteers call "every week is Thanksgiving" from becoming a broken promise to families who plan around Wednesday and Thursday distributions.

The Pantry operates at 713 Molly Barr Road, distributing food Wednesdays from 9 to 11 a.m. for residents under 65 and Thursdays from 9 to 11 a.m. for those 65 and older. Volunteers are needed Tuesdays for stocking and Wednesday and Thursday mornings for distribution. Lafayette County residents can reach The Pantry at (662) 832-8001. Ole Miss students can sign up through the university's GivePulse volunteer portal.