Around the back, down the stairs and into the basement of the Silverdale Baptist Church’s St. Elmo campus on Virginia Avenue, canned goods and shelf-stable foods are stacked floor to ceiling.
The area is the year-round home for HaCoBA Care, the food pantry ministry of the Hamilton County Baptist Association. In the days leading up to Dec. 20, though, the facility turned into base camp for a veteran-centric food giveaway organized by the Marine Corps League Detachment 518.
Chris Linville, who served as a Navy corpsman in the Vietnam War, caught wind that an annual event that provided boxes of food to veterans in need wouldn’t be happening. Linville routinely helped with the event, and when he found out in November that it would not take place in 2025, he made a phone call.
“He arranges things,” Marvin Kirkpatrick said in an interview. “It’s important for him to continue to serve.”
Kirkpatrick was the recipient of that phone call. He serves as the director of HaCoBA Care and is chaplain for the Marine Corps League, both for the state and Detachment 518.