Holt pantry overflows with donations

/ holtnews
Members of Crestview High School Leadership gather after filling a box truck with donated canned and dried food Nov. 21 for the Holt Community Food Pantry.

HOLT, Fla., Nov. 26, 2025—Sometimes the givers need a little help. That’s what the Holt Community Food Pantry received during the past week—a little help in the form of donations, both food and monetary, to help with this holiday season.

Mason Jeffrey Teasdale presents a donation to pantry manger Donna Ash.

On Thursday, Concord Lodge No. 50 of the Free and Accepted Masons gave the pantry a $300 holiday donation to go toward Thanksgiving meal items.

The lodge was chartered in 1886 in Crestview, located in then-Walton County, before Okaloosa County was established.

This donation was followed Friday with a truckload of canned and dried good gathered by the Crestview High School Leadership class.

Each year about this time, Crestview High School Leadership hosts a schoolwide food drive. This year’s donation easily quadrupled the amount from previous years, filling every nook and cranny in the pantry.

Related: “CHS stocks pantry shelves“

Four Crestview leadership juniors—Zachary Sharp, Javy Althouse, Keagan Cox and Johnny Thorpe—arrived in time to help pantry volunteers unload the many boxes of canned goods. They were joined by a fifth student, Mackenzie Bowden, who pitched in to help sort and store the goods onto makeshift shelves in the pantry.

Along with the high school food drive, Holt’s Dollar General conducted its own food drive for the pantry.

Shoppers were offered the opportunity to purchase a canned good while checking out. This generated bags of Thanksgiving staples, such as green beans, fried onions, pumpkin pie filling and other dried goods throughout the month of November.

Earlier in the month, the Crestview Rotary Club donated 100 $25 gift cards to help with Thanksgiving dinners.

“Everybody’s been so responsive,” said pantry assistant manager Jackie Tyler. “It’s been so nice to see.”

Related: “Holt food pantry receives donation for Thanksgiving”

These donations are a huge help to the pantry, particularly with the turmoil of the government shutdown and no supplemental nutrition assistance program benefits for most of November.

How to help

There are a number of ways people can support the Holt Community Food Pantry.

Food and monetary donations can be dropped off at the First Baptist Church of Holt. Checks should be annotated that they’re specifically for the pantry. Call the church at 850-537-6170 for more information.

Tuesdays through Thursdays, donations can be dropped off at the Holt Water Works office between 8 a.m. and noon. Call the water office at 850-537-4113 for more information.

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