Just in time for Christmas, the Bank of Brookhaven and Daily Leader Holiday Food Pantry Drive culminated Monday with a check distribution ceremony at The Daily Leader.

Now, the drive’s recipient charities plan to use the money to provide food for the less fortunate.

For the past 10 years, the joint effort by newspaper and bank has been a staple of the community, one that many residents rely upon at Christmas.

“Every year I’m blown away by the number of folks that say they’ve come to rely upon this service,” said Bank of Brookhaven Vice President Shannon Aker. “This year in particular, folks have told me that they wouldn’t know what to do if we weren’t around.”

Originally scheduled to end on Dec. 13, organizers decided to extend the donation deadline to Thursday, Dec. 19. The new deadline allowed more people to donate to the drive, while ending well enough before Christmas to distribute checks to the recipient pantries.

Despite starting off a little slow, this year’s drive experienced a spike in recent days, Aker said.

“I was a little concerned to begin with,” he continued. “However, the last couple days of the drive saw a huge rally.”

The slow start could be attributed to a late Thanksgiving. The annual drive began the day before Thanksgiving, on Nov. 27.

All told, this year’s drive saw $10,000 in donations. This is short of last year’s total that reached over $11,000, but still an amount to be grateful for said Otis Raybon, Daily Leader publisher.

“It’s inspiring, really. It’s something to feel good about,” Raybon said. “The partnership between The Daily Leader and the Bank of Brookhaven is something the community is putting their trust into. This is a big deal.”

Donations from this year’s holiday drive were split almost equally three ways between churches, individual donors and anonymous donors. One anonymous donor gave $1,000 to the drive.

From the final drive total, five checks of $2,000 were issued Monday to participating food pantries in the area. Three out of the five food pantries involved in the drive were represented at Monday’s check-giving ceremony. Paula Gennaro of St. Francis Assisi Church/St. Vincent de Paul, Gwen Dyess of the Union Hall Baptist Church and Flora Kelly of the Greater Hope Foundation were on hand to accept checks from Aker at Monday’s ceremony. Representatives from St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church and Bethel AME weren’t at the ceremony, but also will receive checks.

The success of the drive, now in its 10th year, has had a contagious affect on some community organizations, according to Aker.

“Sunday school and civic school classes have told me they are determined to start up drives that are similar to the holiday drive. It’s encouraging,” Aker said.

“Every penny of donation money goes to the pantries,” Aker said.

The need for nutritional food over the holidays is much greater than any other time of the year, Flora Kelly explained Monday.

Kelly, whose Greater Hope Foundation food pantry deals primarily with the elderly, says she has seen a younger generation in recent years, a phenomenon not uncommon to other area food pantries. Kelly and other pantry representatives surmise that this could be the result of an increased awareness due to the Holiday Food Pantry drive.

“We have started to see a lot of younger families in need of food come to our pantry,” said Paula Gennaro of St. Francis Assisi Church/St. Vincent de Paul. “As the holiday drive becomes more and more popular, we see a larger turnout at our church.”

Gwen Dyess, director the food pantry at Union Hall Baptist Church, tailors pantry items to the particular demographic.

“It’s my joy to maybe add something to the food buggy if there are children involved. For Christmas, I usually provide some cake mix. It’s not entirely healthy, but I feel like it can lift the spirits of those in need. Also, I have been known to include a toy at times, for the kids,” said Dyess.

Aker, who has been coordinating the drive for the last eight years, says it is gets easier every year. “We are making a lot of people happy with this drive … including ourselves. It’s an honor to be a part of it.