The 2 News Share Your Christmas food drive is Friday, December 13th. And one of the many beneficiaries is the Carson Valley Community Food Closet.
"Our primary focus is providing supplemental food to people in need," said Director Sarah Sanchez. "We participate in different programs, the Food Bank comes down to help, and as the food closet we provide supplemental food to families in Douglas County."
The closet has a new kitchen and learning center where clients can learn to cook healthy, delicious meals with the items they're given. Every month, Chef Lonny Huot from Edgewood Tahoe teaches a cooking class with items he finds there.
"I kind of take a look and see what they have on site, it changes every time," Huot said. "So I kind of rummage around and put together three or four courses and do a little educational program for the recipients of the program here."
It's something he looks forward to.
"I love it, it it's very rewarding, very near and dear to my heart," Huot said. "Being in the food industry and feeding people for a living, and then having the opportunity to come and do this in this forum is amazing."
The hope is to encourage clients here to get creative with what they're given.
"Everything we're preparing is right here, it's available to you," Huot said. "We teach them a little bit, talk about techniques and variations, about healthy portions and the nutritional piece as well. I don't prepare anything here that I know for a fact they can't go home and produce themselves."
The food closet serves hundreds of families in Douglas County every month. This is an interactive way to gather some of those families around the table.
"There is quite a bit of interaction and I'm happy about that because otherwise it would be pretty boring," Huot said. "I kind of tell some jokes, they're not very good but I try."
Just another way these community members are helping their own.
"This whole facility really is facilitated by the community," Sanchez said. "It benefits the clients but the folks who pass out the food, who pick it up, everyone is a resident of our community, so I always think of it as very cyclical, as how we're helping our neighbors. It takes a village, they say, and it does for addressing hunger, especially here in Douglas County."
