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CABOT, VERMONT — Cabot Creamery Cooperative has announced that Clemmons Food Pantry has won a prize of $2,500 sponsored by CoBank. The grant is specifically for rural non-profit organizations as part of Cabot’s Reward Volunteers initiative. Cabot has partnered with CoBank to offer four $2,500 grants to small, rural non-profits that serve a community with a population of 20,000 or fewer residents. Clemmons Food Pantry won for volunteer hours that were tracked during the month of June.

The Clemmons Food Pantry is a non-profit organization that provides supplemental groceries to residents of Forsyth County. Started as a Sunday school project by a small group at Clemmons United Methodist Church, the pantry has since grown to an award-winning community organization that has extended its services to more than 175,000 people. The pantry is fortunate to be supported entirely by a network of more than 350 generous volunteers who give their time and energy to serve others. With no full-time employees, they are able to use the majority of donations to purchase food from Second Harvest as well as meat and produce from retailers and distributors.

“We have been working on building a new location for the food pantry for almost three years,” said Kathy Kovack, executive director of Clemmons Food Pantry. “We have managed to pay for the building as we go. We are very proud of that accomplishment and are now making a big push to get to our goal. This grant money will be used towards that purpose. We are extremely grateful for the flexibility of the Reward Volunteers program that allows us to use the money for this cause.”

Reward Volunteers is a volunteer tracking and rewards system for those who generously give back. Cabot has lead the efforts behind Reward Volunteers to celebrate and promote volunteerism across the country and rewards those individuals and organizations that track the most volunteer hours.

Reward Volunteers is a free, easy way to track and log your volunteer hours for the good work you do in your communities for a chance to earn rewards in cash or prizes for your contributions. To find our more about Reward Volunteers, go to https://rewardvolunteers.coop

Cabot Creamery Co-operative has been in continuous operation in Vermont since 1919, and makes a full line of cheeses, Greek yogurt, sour cream, cottage cheese and butter. Widely known as makers of “The World’s Best Cheddar,” Cabot is owned by the 800 dairy farm families of Agri-Mark, the Northeast’s premier dairy cooperative, with farms located throughout New England and upstate New York. For more information, go to http://www.cabotcheese.coop.