At the beginning of the month, Mississippi Food Network interim CEO Cassandra Mobley told MPB that some of the donations originally set aside for Thanksgiving had to be used to help those affected by the shutdown.
"We have been getting things in to get ready for our Thanksgiving rush and trying to get the extra food in for that," Mobley said on Nov. 3. "Those are some of the resources that we have now activated to use now to get out for this additional need."
And, while the shutdown is over, Mississippians are still bouncing back from lost paychecks and benefits from those 43 days.
For many pantries and kitchens, the weeks leading up to the holidays have been equal parts encouraging and difficult.
Oliver Johnson, project manager at Mission Okolona outside Tupelo, said they've had to do more to feed folks ahead of Thanksgiving.
"We just had a big fundraising drive to solicit financial donations as well as donations in kind: we had to purchase more food than we normally have to purchase," he said. "We've been fortunate that we were able to get donations so that we're able to purchase food to replace what we didn't get from [Mississippi] Food Network."
Debra Adams, co-founder of Greenwood Community Center, said they're telling clients to be strategic with what donations they do get.
"We ask that they sparingly use those items that would help them to get through the Thanksgiving holidays," she explained.
Just like the food banks themselves, she said folks coming to the center are often having to use what they get for Thanksgiving to take care of regular meals.
And, Thanksgiving this year may look different for some of those folks in Greenwood.
"Right now, honestly, Thanksgiving, it is not just about these turkeys: it's about food," said Adams, saying they're giving out anything they can for the holiday. "It's Thanksgiving, I need to put food on the table."
GCC gave out 300 to-go meals on Monday for Thanksgiving -- Adams said they were all gone within an hour and a half.
Longer-term, there's still a lot of uncertainty with what's next, especially with SNAP benefits.
"Who knows what the next month's going to be like? December they may get them, but then guess what -- the government [could] shut down again in the end of January," said Adams. "It just depends."
Still, Adams said they've got lots to be grateful for with the holidays.
Fannie Johnson, executive director of LOVE's Kitchen in Meridian, said that thanks to generosity from the community and charitable foundations, this may actually be their best Thanksgiving yet.
"This community always comes through," said Johnson, who has been working in the charity sphere for nearly two decades.
"But this year it's a little extra cause they know people are in a bind and people are gonna be hurting."
And she says they've been fortunate not just in donations, but in the amount of people volunteering to serve meals.
LOVE's Kitchen does daily meals, as opposed to giving out food meant to last folks a little longer. Johnson said most of her clients are working-class people in Meridian, who are poorer, and can save money for other things -- like transporation or healthcare -- by having lunch at LOVE's.
"One reason I'm excited about doing something so much better or bigger than we've ever done before is because people are so nervous this year," Johnson told MPB. "People are scared. People are kind of upset that, you know, 'maybe I won't have one' and we want our clients to have the kind of Thanksgiving that families at home have."
