NATCHEZ — In the span of three-and-a-half hours, Miss-Lou residents donated five truckloads of goods to feed the area’s needy.

The Adams County Board of Supervisors led its annual Pack the Pickup fundraiser for the Natchez Stewpot from 3:30 to 7 p.m. Thursday, at the grocery stores around Natchez.

In that time, they were able to fill the beds of five pickup trucks with food goods and collect a total of $4,303 in cash donations for the Stewpot, which serves hot meals, no questions asked, to anyone who needs them.

Stewpot Director Amanda Jeansonne said the response was “overwhelming.”

“That will last us probably the first six months of the year,” she said. “With the other groups and organizations that have been having canned food drives and have been bringing collections to us, it was just a blessing for us.

“The generosity of the Natchez community is wonderful.”

And while they were the ones who dropped the food off at the Stewpot when it was done, the supervisors said the thanks go to the community.

“It gets you in the holiday spirit, just doing what we did,” District 1 Supervisor Mike Lazarus said. “It can pull at your heartstrings. I had one lady who said, ‘I don’t even have a job, so I will give you something because I might be eating there next week.”

At one of the sites, some pulled up with a trailer carrying two full pallets of goods and gave them to the effort, Lazarus said.

District 4 Supervisor Darryl Grennell said the response of the community to the effort was “beautiful and overwhelming.”

“There was a young fellow, maybe 18-years-old, who came back to us with a grocery cart full of food,” he said. “We didn’t expect such a young person to be so concerned about feeding the hungry. There is no formula for what kind of person will give — you never know what a person will do.”

After the Pack the Pickup effort ended, Grennell said, the employees at Walmart decided to keep up the effort even after the county officials were gone, and a second load of goods raised just by them will be dropped off later.

“I was so happy to see how the people in Natchez-Adams County supported this endeavor, and I am glad to know that the board of the future is planning to continue this effort,” he said.