Iron Gate Grocery Pantry Celebrates 2 Years In Tulsa

Thursday, Tulsa's Iron Gate handed out ice cream along with its daily meal as a way to celebrate 2-years at its downtown location. Organizers at the non-profit said they are feeding hundreds of people each morning. 

"We're excited today and we're celebrating with our guests. We have a special meal and then Puopolo's came out and is giving all of our guests a cold sweet treat," said Carrie Vesely Henderson.

Iron Gate has been feeding those in need in our community for more than 40 years and lately, they're seeing an increase in the number of people looking for help. "As people are kind of shelters are having to reduce numbers and things like that we're definitely seeing more people here in the morning than even a week ago," said Vesely Henderson.

Carrie Vesely Henderson is the executive director of Iron Gate and said they feed hundreds of people each morning and are seeing more people coming to the food pantry. "Most of the people who are coming to our community meal are experiencing homelessness and they might be staying on the streets, in a shelter, it just depends. We also might have people stopping by just for a hot meal," said Vesely Henderson.

She said the pandemic is part of the reason, but she's also seeing more families with kids. "Kids going back to school, back to school expenses leaves you a little short for groceries so all of that kind of factors in to I think the incline of numbers," said Vesely Henderson.

She said they're hoping to have their food pantry open for in-person soon.