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Evelyn Mount Struggling to Keep Up with Food Demands
Posted: Aug 26, 2011 6:45 PM PDT Updated: Sep 06, 2011 2:11 PM PDT
Adam Rasmussen Channel 2 NewsLocal philanthropist Evelyn Mount donates food to the community every week. For 34 years she’s given food to the needy, but now, she’s calling on the community to help her out.
Mount says she’s been struggling most of the summer, and says this is the first year she has started running out of food, but she’s not sure why.
“We need food, the people are crying out for food, and we need all the food that we can get,” says Mount.
Hundreds signed up to get food Friday, but dozens were turned away. Mount says she normally feeds 160 people every week. But on this Friday, she couldn’t keep up with the demand.
“I signed up for 343 for this because the word got around that they can come here and get food,” she says.
Reno woman’s home has become a veritable food bank
Evelyn Mount, 84, has been handing out food, clothes and other items to the needy since the 1970s. With unemployment rampant and the tourism economy dormant, demand has never been greater.
December 25, 2010|By Ashley Powers, Los Angeles Times
Reporting from Reno — They shivered on the sidewalk, wind pelting their cheeks, and shuffled toward Evelyn Mount’s modest beige home. For dozens of this out-of-luck gambling city’s untoward and unemployed, it was a destination of last resort.
Mount and her volunteers greeted them outside her two-car garage with enough groceries to whip up a feast. Mount has run a makeshift food bank here for three decades; there’s probably never been a greater hunger for it.
Evelyn Mount’s Story of Helping Others
Posted: Nov 25, 2010 5:31 PM PST Updated: Dec 02, 2010 12:24 PM PST
Chris Ciarlo Channel 2 NewsOn a day when most of us are taking note of what we’re thankful for, some are saying special words of thanks to a woman, who has changed our community for the better.
Evelyn Mount has been helping people for 33 years now. She told us she doesn’t plan on slowing down anytime soon. “We were raised that way,” said Mount. “I feel if I can’t help someone, I’m not here for any good.”
So as a young girl growing up in a family of nine, Mount’s journey as a servant began. “This is my purpose in life that God has anointed me to be one of his servants to his people.”
Now, 84 years young, Mount’s still as spry as can be. This Thanksgiving Day, we found her at MacGregor’s Inn doing what she has done so many years in the past, serving a hot meal to the less fortunate. “A lot of them come back and say thank you and a lot of them came back and have become my volunteers.”
Last year, Mount fed more than 480 people. This Thanksgiving, she expects to fill even more hungry bellies. “This is the worst I have ever seen it. We ran out of turkeys and chickens this time.”
Mount brings in the donations to make these meals possible, but she says she won’t partake, at least not until everyone else has eaten first. “It’s not about me,” said Mount. “It’s about what the people in Reno and Sparks are doing. I’m only serving what they put forth to serve.”
It’s that kind if generosity and giving that has earned Mount the mother of all compliments.
“She made me think of my grandmother and how my grandmother was a giving person,” said Mount’s friend and volunteer Rose Gordon. “She always made me feel comfortable. It wasn’t like I was meeting a stranger.”
“I call her an angel,” said Evelyn Mount Volunteer, Lucille Adin. “She just cares so much and does so much for people.”
Although Thanksgiving is behind her, Evelyn Mount still needs your food donations for Christmas. If you would like to help, you can call 775-359-0807 or 775-356-0238.
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