Food pantries in Pflugerville and Hutto are seeing greater demand for assistance while facing tighter resources and fewer donations, organization leaders said. 

Nonprofits like Circle of Hope Community Center in Pflugerville and Hutto Resource Center are working to keep up with the need by providing food and essential supplies to residents.

Current situation: Sandy Brockwell, executive director of Hutto Resource Center, said the nonprofit is serving more people than ever. 

“We’re just trying to figure out how to keep up with the demand and make sure that we are serving everybody that needs to be served,” Brockwell said.

A closer look: Some nonprofits, such as Circle of Hope, have been struggling to stay afloat. Sustainability has been a challenge, and even food that is donated costs money to receive, store, transport and deliver, Lee said. 

"A lot of the folks that have donated to us regularly, they've been impacted and so they've scaled back a lot,” she said.

Giving back: Both nonprofits offer multiple food distribution events each month.

Three Legged Goat, a local Pflugerville bar and music venue, closed in late October. 

The details: Owned by former Pflugerville City Council member Jim McDonald, the business opened in November 2018 and exclusively served Texas beers and wines. 

“I was proud that we were able to open our doors and our stage to so many in this community, including multiple nonprofits, veteran groups, political events and other community organizations, and especially to local artists, up-and-coming musicians and young musicians who were just starting out and needed a place to play, to learn and to be welcomed,” McDonald said. 

In their own words: McDonald cited lease renewal issues as the reason for closing and encouraged residents to show up for local businesses. 

“The outpouring of love and support we received meant more than I can put into words, and those memories will stay with me,” McDonald said. “Please keep showing up for the local spots that make this town what it is.”

• 200 E. Main St., Ste. 5, Pflugerville

The Williamson County Healthcare Provider Participation Program will now have two separate rates that contribute to a dedicated bank account, following approval from the Commissioners Court on Oct. 27.

What happened: Following negotiations between the Texas Health and Human Services Commission and the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the assessment calculation was updated from the single-rate models.

Rather than the traditional one-rate structure, the program will now draw from a rate based on net patient revenue from inpatient hospital services and another from outpatient hospital services.

What it means: The healthcare program subsidizes the cost of treating patients without insurance or those covered by Medicaid through mandatory assessments collected from local private hospitals, such as Ascension Seton and Baylor Scott & White.

That money collected from private hospitals is then sent through state-administered programs and matched with federal funds, to be redistributed to the participating local hospitals through the local provider participation fund, or LPPF.