The Community Post

Blessing Pantry continues to help those who need it

By COREY MAXWELL MANAGING EDITOR

NEW BREMEN —The Blessing Pantry at the St. Paul’s United Church of Christ is open to the public for those in need.

What started as a cabinet has turned into a full-blown food pantry in the church and Rev. Becky Erb Strang was on-hand at the New Bremen New Knoxville Rotary Club meeting Tuesday morning to explain the pantry’s goals and what they are accomplishing.

“Five or six years ago, one of our church members came to our discipleship team and said, ‘Do you know there are people in New Bremen, Ohio who are going to restaurants to use the restrooms because they cannot afford toilet paper?’ and our discipleship team said ‘No, we did not know that,’” said Strang.

Two years ago, New Bremen resident Taylor Paul expanded the cabinet into a pantry as part of her Girl Scout Gold Award project.

In October of last year, Strang said, the church started its Sunday School and youth programming back up and decided to move the pantry back into the smaller space with the staff running the program being entirely made up of volunteers.

Strang said just as they were moving back into the smaller space, the church became a partnered agency with the West Ohio Food Bank in Lima.

Through the partnership, Strang said the church can get food for 19 cents per pound, 12 cents per pound and even free in some cases.

Rhonda Bowlby, who helps run the pantry, said since the partnership began with West Ohio Food Bank, she’s begun building relationships with other pantries in the area including Agape Ministries, Call Ministries in Celina, Loaves and Fishes in Wapakoneta, the Calvary Church in Minster and the Dollar General in New Bremen, adding that they get a lot of overstock

items.

“I really see all of our little pantries ... as being an integral part of our community,” said Bowlby. “We have to understand it doesn’t matter where we live, someone is hungry, and that’s a shame.”

Bowlby said she’s glad there are bigger services available like Agape and Call who are able to serve a bigger group of people. She said she visited Call and they served 80 carloads of people in two hours.

“Our pantry fills in that little gap,” she said. “Our little blessing pantry here in New Bremen is a cornerstone for the people who live here. To know that we’ve got your back. Even if it’s in a small way. We don’t want to be as big as Agape or Call, we want to be able to fill that little gap so that people … have food when they run out.”

Bowlby said the pantry has a couple of current goals and that’s to get a bigger refrigerator/freezer unit and to get an industrial freezer to better store food and beverages.

Support from the community has been strong since the pantry started as a cabinet and as it’s grown into the size it is today, said Bowlby, saying that they have not had to purchase many groceries thanks to donations.

“During the pandemic, it became the community pantry,” she said. “All of the citizens of the community were stopping by the church with monetary or physical donations. This truly has become a community project. Which I find absolutely tremendous.”

She thanked the volunteers that help get people what they need when they stop.

“We have an excellent volunteer staff. They work so hard. We wouldn’t have the pantry we have and I would be able to do the work I do if they were not manning the doors,” she said.

The Blessing Pantry is open from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Tuesdays and 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

“If you called and needed food in between that time, we will open and get that to you and for you. Those times don’t necessarily work with everyone’s schedules,” added Strang.

Front Page

en-us

2021-05-11T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-05-11T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://thecommunitypost.pressreader.com/article/281565178641135

Alberta Newspaper Group