Gallup Community Pantry faces shortages as demand surges across region
Bare shelves at Gallup Community Pantry are forcing fewer food boxes and earlier closings. Thousands of McKinley County households depend on the pantry each month.
Empty steel shelves at the Gallup Community Pantry are already meaning fewer food boxes for McKinley County families, and the warehouse can shut its doors early when supplies run out. The shortage is hitting a hub that feeds households, rural mobile stops and partner agencies across western New Mexico.
The pantry, at 1130 Hasler Valley Rd. in Gallup, is the main distribution center for The Community Pantry, a nonprofit founded in 1999 by Jim Harlin and Tom Crider and moved into its Hasler Valley Road facility in 2003. Under executive director Alice Perez and chief operating officer Hilda Garcia-Kendall, the organization provides emergency food boxes, free produce, TEFAP commodities, the Food For Kids program and bulk food for local nonprofits and churches.
On April 1, U.S. Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández toured the warehouse with Perez and saw rows of bare steel racking where pallets of donated food are normally stacked. Perez said federal funding cuts and narrow application windows have made the strain worse as donations have slowed and demand has climbed.
The impact reaches far beyond Gallup. The pantry makes mobile deliveries on Mondays and Fridays to rural parts of McKinley County and Cibola County, and it also serves parts of the Navajo Nation. Its own figures show the emergency food program reaches about 3,159 families and 6,679 individuals a month, while a newer help page lists about 3,467 families and 7,555 individuals monthly. That scale means a shortfall can ripple through school meal programs, elder services and small agencies that depend on the pantry to stretch limited budgets.
The need is rising in a county already living with deep food insecurity. Feeding America estimates McKinley County’s 2023 food insecurity rate at 22.9 percent, affecting about 16,320 people, with an annual food budget shortfall of $10,484,000 and an average meal cost of $3.39. The Community Pantry says 36 percent of county residents live below the poverty line.
As supplies tighten, the pantry is asking for peanut butter, dried pinto beans, canned meat, canned fruit, canned vegetables, cereal, macaroni and cheese, rice and soups, along with cash donations and volunteers. For families already choosing between groceries, utilities and fuel, the empty shelves at the Gallup warehouse now carry a direct warning: if shipments and donations do not rebound, more households will leave with less.
How to help: Donations can go to the Gallup site on Hasler Valley Road, and the pantry can use food, money and volunteer help to keep emergency boxes moving through Gallup, rural McKinley County and Cibola County.
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