Stewardship studies in Pilot Grove lead to successful food pantry
Small groups in St. Joseph Parish in Pilot Grove studied and talked about the Four Pillars of Stewardship.
Then, they took a good, hard look around.
“Each week, the study materials offered ways to implement stewardship in your life, and one way was giving back to your community,” said Jaclyn Inskeep, coordinator for the small, faith-sharing groups at the parish.
One inquiry led to another, and now Pilot Grove has a perennially stocked food pantry in a safe, central location.
“We’ve been overwhelmed with the response our pantry has received from donors and community members in need,” said Mrs. Inskeep.
She called the pantry and the ways people have kept it going a prime example of stewardship in action.
“Once it was out there, people stepped up to support it,” she said. “They just needed the idea.”
The first such idea was to talk to the counselor at the local public school.
“We wanted to find out if there are any families in need of Christmas gifts or anything like that,” said Mrs. Inskeep.
The counselor said the real need was for nonperishable food items to send home in Buddy Packs for students who would otherwise go hungry over weekends and school vacations.
St. Joseph Parish held a successful food drive for the program.
Further inquiry at the school revealed food scarcity to be an even deeper problem in the community.
Parishioners realized that the city’s indoor recycling building is safe, well lit, centrally located and accessible all day and night.
Mrs. Inskeep attended a City Council meeting and asked for permission to install a food cabinet in the building.
“They agreed to it, as long as there was no trouble with vandalism or anything like that,” she recalled.
A beautiful thing about the location is that it’s completely open all day.
“It’s pretty private, too,” said Mrs. Inskeep. “You can look like you’re dropping off recycling and no one sees you taking something you need.”
“Very heartwarming”
Mrs. Inskeep placed a laundry basket in the cry room in St. Joseph Church for people to leave food in.
A local hairdresser keeps another donation basket in her shop.
“And a lot of people just take their food straight to the pantry,” said Mrs. Inskeep.
People donated fresh eggs and produce this summer, with the word getting out over a specially created Facebook page.
Parishioners originally thought there would only be a few families who were struggling with food insecurity.
“We never knew we’d be going through cases and cases,” said Mrs. Inskeep.
She estimates that close to 5,000 pounds of nonperishable food have been distributed from the cabinet since January 2023.
“In beginning, we were focused more on trying to have easy-to-prepare items for kids,” she stated. “But I think we’re also seeing a fair amount of elderly people who are on very fixed incomes, depending on their Social Security.”
Mrs. Inskeep posted on social media that she was looking for a larger cabinet to buy, and an anonymous donor had one shipped to her.
In the meantime, someone else delivered an even larger cabinet to the recycling building, so Mrs. Inskeep has a place to keep donated food before stocking it there.
“We started it at the beginning of last year, and through the blessings of our community and parishioners, we haven’t been without food yet,” she said.
“People are always stopping in and dropping something off,” she stated. “One person leaves money at the local grocery store, and I go and pick up food when I need it.”
The Future Business Leaders of America (FLBA) chapter at Pilot Grove High School held a Halloween food drive and delivered 600 pounds of food for the pantry.
This year during Advent, the parish is posting a reverse Advent calendar “where instead of receiving an item, you give an item each day.”
This will help keep the pantry stocked through the higher-demand Christmas holiday, when children are off school.
“Altogether, it’s been a huge eye-opener and very heartwarming,” said Mrs. Inskeep.
Fears relieved
Mrs. Inskeep is convinced that God had a hand in leading parishioners to ask about a need they previously didn’t realize was as severe as it is.
“We’re a small community, so we sort of feel we know everybody,” she noted. “I don’t think we understood the amount of need in our own community.”
God remains at the center of this operation.
“When I take things there, I just pray that it gets a family or a kiddo by,” said Mrs. Inskeep.
“Also, if someone gets through a rough patch and they’re able to help somebody later on, that’s what I hope will happen,” she stated.
At Eastertime, a student at Pilot Grove Elementary School went to her teacher, terribly worried that she and her sister wouldn’t have enough to eat over Easter Break.
The counselor walked the girl out to the schoolyard and pointed to the recycling building, saying, “If you can walk to that building, there’s always a container full of food in there.
“Whenever you need something to eat, it’s there for you,” the counselor told the girl. “It’s food you can fix for yourself. There are bags for you to take it home in.”
Tears of joy ran down the girl’s face: “We don’t have to be hungry anymore!”
“That was a huge eye-opener,” said Mrs. Inskeep. “My children are blessed where they don’t have to have that fear.”
She’s amazed at how once the idea took shape, people throughout the community stepped up eagerly to help.
“Even people who aren’t members at our church participate in it,” she said. “It’s something everybody has gotten into as a community.”
A good prototype
Mrs. Inskeep is wholly convinced that just about any parish with a good facility nearby and a bit of creativity could start a similar food pantry of their own.
“I think any small community could easily do this,” she said. “The city was very open to it as long as we maintain it. The cabinet was the only cost.
“People are so good about donating food, it pretty much takes care of it itself,” she added.
She said the people of St. Joseph are happy knowing they’re making a difference in some of their neighbors’ lives.
They’re also on the lookout for other areas of hidden need in the community.
“We’ll just keep helping each other until this need goes away and we’re led in a different direction,” she said.
