Leveda Ashlin, President of Morrison Charitable Food Pantry NFP, wrote this report.
2022 was an exciting and stressful time for the newly re-organized Morrison Food Pantry, doing business as Morrison Charitable Food Pantry NFP. We volunteers had to learn all the ins-and-outs of running a Food Pantry, when Kaywyn Beswick retired, after 17 years as Director, in December 2021.
By working closely with River Bend Food Bank and Sauk Valley Food Bank to understand training resources, regulations regarding Pantries, etc., we were on our way. Due to the wonderful volunteers working at the Pantry we have been able to streamline our processes and perform cross-training, which makes us more efficient. We revamped the Pantry website with updated forms and information, as well as updating our Facebook page.
There is a lot of paperwork/reporting required on a monthly basis, including families served and number of people in those families; sources of all donated food items; all donations of personal care items. The personal care items are distributed, as we have them available, and include such items as paper products, home cleaning products, and personal hygiene items.
During the FY2022 we served a total of 458 households, which included 484 children (18 years of age and younger), and a total of 1269 recipients. We expect the numbers to increase this year.
We live in a very caring community as evidenced by the 70+ bags of food purchased at Sullivan’s Foods and donated to the Pantry during Thanksgiving and Christmas. Thank you, Morrison! We would also like to thank
1. Sullivan’s Foods for their weekly donations of food items.
2. Kunes Auto Group of Morrison for the 3962 lbs. of sorted and bagged food items, purchased through River Bend Food Bank in August and donated to us
3. Postal Workers for their annual Food Drive
4. various Service Organizations and Clubs
5. all the individuals who donated items for us.
You are all a blessing to this community.
People ask us what we need, what goes the furthest, etc. The answer is threefold.
1. Cash goes the furthest. We can purchase the needed food items through the Food Banks at a greatly reduced price vs. donors buying food and donating to us. Many people do not know that the Pantry does not receive any monies from any Governmental body. We depend on private donations and food/personal care items drives to keep us going.
2. Residents purchasing personal care items are a real bonus for us and our clients. We need to concentrate on purchasing needed food products. You can purchase the small bottles of dish and laundry soaps at Family Dollar, Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and, occasionally, at Walmart.
3. Food Donations. We had several people donate fresh vegetables when their gardens started to produce. Some donated meat when they had a beef processed, and others donated frozen chickens and canned and packaged food.
All donations add up no matter how small or large they are, as they are all distributed. Please call 815-631-1171 to arrange delivery of donated items, or drop off your items on Thursday mornings between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m., when we are open for business.
Morrison United Methodist Church has been wonderful about renting the space we have for many years. However, we have an aging volunteer group, and negotiating the steps makes it hard for many of us. We would love to be able to find an affordable place, all one level, with available parking for our volunteers and clients. A bonus would be an overhead door to allow our food delivery truck to unload our pallets and bring them inside, instead of the current process of having to unload onto the sidewalk and taking each package upstairs for labeling and storage.
If you know of a place that might work for us, please contact President Leveda Ashlin at 815-631-1171.
