Food donation helps Goshute Reservation pantry feed families

GOSHUTE, Juab County — You can find all sorts of food at the pantry in Goshute. But right now, it’s less stocked than ever.

Georgia Oppenhien runs the pantry on the Goshute Reservation on the Utah-Nevada border, and she said that as expensive as food is right now, there are just more people who need help.

“When I went to Smiths the other day, I had maybe three or four bags and it was almost a hundred dollars,” Oppenhien said.

Plus, with as remote as Goshute is, it’s a two-hour drive to Wendover and back just to get to the closest grocery store.

“We used to have a store here, but they closed it, and then people have moved on. Nobody opened it again,” said Clell Pete, Councilman with the Confederate Tribe of the Goshute.

But on Wednesday, in a way, the store showed up to them. The West Jordan Rotary Club donated nearly 14 hundred pounds of food to the Goshute Reservation.

Stuart Richardson, who is with the Rotary Club, has been coming to Goshute for years to help in any way he can. He heard food supplies were low.

“In the seven years that I have been coming here, this amount of food has gone down more than I have ever seen,” Richardson said.

So, he gathered up other members, got food and made the trip.

“We do a little bit of fundraising, but honestly most of it’s just money that members throw in,” Richardson said. “We throw in a hundred bucks every once in a while; you get ten or twelve of us to do it, and we have enough to make it happen.”

It sure helps Oppenhien keep the shelves stocked, especially with the holidays coming.

“I appreciate it, and the tribal members here, we appreciate anything that we can get,” Oppenhien said.

Of course, this donation will only get them through the next few weeks. More donations are needed going forward. Richardson said he’ll do his best to get more donations headed to the Goshute Reservation.