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“Just because we love you” was the theme for the drive-through, food bag distribution at the Troy Nutrition Center on Monday.

The nutrition center has been closed for three months now due to COVID-19. The staff misses the interaction with the 50 participants who normally visit the center on a daily basis for food and fellowship.

So, on Monday, the staff invited the  participants to dive through for a special gift bag that was packaged simply as a way to say, “We miss you and look forward to all of us being back together and, hopefully, soon,” said Jessica Cox,  Troy Nutrition Center office manager.

“Sometimes, you just feel a need to let people know how much you care,” Cox said. “So, we got some special items from the food bank and invited our participants to drive through and pick up these bag that say, ‘we love you and thank you for your friendship.’”

Nikki Jones, office manager, and Delores Williams and Burnette Anders, van drivers joined Cox in handing out the gift bags in a personal kind of way.

Cox said the Troy Nutrition Center, not only provides the participants with nutritious meals, it also offers the fun and fellowship that come with simply being together.

“We are family and a large family,” Cox said. “We all miss being together but we have been able to continue to provide meals for our participants throughout this virus. But in different ways  — from hot meals, to shelf stable products to frozen meals.

“The shelf-stable meals contained two weeks of food products and the frozen meals had a week’s worth of meals,” Cox said. “On July 6, we’ll go back to the hot meals, at least for a while. We’ll continue to look forward to the time when we can all be back together.”

The Troy Nutrition Center serves 50 on-site meals a day and 65 carry-outs.

“Fifty is our limit for on-site meals but we will take names for our waiting list and, if someone is out, we call off the waiting list in order to reach the number we serve daily,” Cox said. The number to call is 334-566-0177.