Chicken Salad Chick’s Katie Bowen, from left, District Manager Paul Ballenger, The Link of Cullman County Board Chair Chris Hopper, Board Vice-Chair Meredith Easterwood, The Link Director of Neighbor Relations Julie Hall, The Link Neighbor Relations Coordinator Paige Williams, The Link Director of Community Relations Melissa Betts, Chicken Salad Chick’s Taylor Marsh and Store Manager Josh Lisenby stand with Chicken Salad Chick’s donation to The Link of Cullman County Friday morning.

In a time when food pantries are busier than ever, Cullman’s Chicken Salad Chick provided a big boost to the The Link of Cullman County’s Master’s Hands Food Pantry with a donation of more than $9,000. 

On Friday morning, restaurant employees presented some of the The Link’s staff and board members with a check for $9,400 that was raised through the restaurant’s Giving Cards that were on sale in November and December.

The $5 cards offered $60 in savings for customers over the course of 2021, and 100 percent of the money collected from their sales went directly to The Link’s food pantry, said Store Manager Josh Lisenby. 

Chicken Salad Chick has 173 locations spread across 14 states, and Cullman’s restaurant ranked fourth out of all of those with 1,880 cards sold, he said.

Lisenby said Chicken Salad Chick sells the Giving Cards every year to raise money for a local charity, and the Master’s Hands Food Pantry was selected for this year’s fundraising drive because it serves all of Cullman County’s residents who are in need of assistance.

He also made sure to credit all of the employees who pitched in to sell the cards to customers as they came in, and said they did a great job to do so even during a pandemic when many people aren’t wanting to get out and go to restaurants.

“It did go very well,” he said. “Everybody’s got to be bought into it, and the team was definitely bought into this.”

Paige Williams, who is The Link’s Neighbor Relations Coordinator and in charge of the food pantry, donation will enable the Master’s Hands pantry to purchase more food and equipment and help make sure the residents of Cullman County will continue to count on the pantry into the future. 

“It’s just a huge blessing,” she said. 

The money received from Chicken Salad Chick is coming at a good time for the food pantry, as the COVID-19 pandemic has led to an increase in the number of families who are in need of food assistance, Williams said. 

“We served 800 more people last year than we did the prior year, and we’re expecting that number to increase in 2021,” she said. “So we are just so blessed that this will enable us to sustain that growth and be able to serve our community.”