Columbia County food pantry suffers from peanut butter shortage - WFXG FOX54 Augusta - Your News One Hour Earlier

Appling, GA (WFXG) - It's the gooey golden-brown paste kids, and adults, love to eat for lunch: peanut butter. It's high in protein, and it's filling; making it the number one item requested here at Columbia County Cares, a food pantry in Appling. But for the past two months, their stock of peanut butter has been running low.

"At a food pantry, it's a commodity and it's a need," said Gwen Marshall, office manager at Columbia County Cares. "It's a desperate need. It's not like it's just a bottle of ketchup, or mustard, or mayonnaise. It's peanut butter."

Columbia County Cares is a non-profit organization that provides temporary food assistance to needy families. The food pantry serves more than one thousand clients; nearly half are children and seniors. But right now, there's just not enough peanut butter to spread.

"As to why we're out I don't know," Marshall said. "I've seen this for a long long time and I've seen this happen over and over again."

Columbia County Cares says they don't think the recent peanut butter recall in grocery stores across the country caused the shortage. They're just worried about how they're going to refill their shelves so they can provide peanut butter to all of their clients.

"It's really heart breaking to have a family come in here and we can give them peanut butter, and then a senior who's right behind them, in line, sees us give them that peanut butter and we have to tell them no," said Stacy Baker, a volunteer at Columbia County Cares.

Legally, the food pantry can only give peanut butter jars to those registered under G-NAP, Georgia's nutritional assistance program that helps low-income families get the food they need for good health, which is why they're asking the public to donate jars of peanut butter to their pantry.

"Our churches and a lot of people in the community help us extremely, but it's just not holding up," said Baker.

From October 8 through October 12, Fox54 is holding a peanut butter drive. Jars can be dropped off at the station at 3933 Washington Road in Martinez.