Grateful appreciation and a sense of accomplishment were evident Saturday when area residents and volunteers of the Kingdom Come Food Pantry gathered to celebrate the pantry’s 10-year anniversary.
Pantry officials estimate that they have made a difference in the lives of about 2,000 area families in the area over the last decade.
The pantry began in the humblest of settings: a storage closet at the Methodist church.
“Moving around in the tiny storage closet was difficult, in the beginning, and we could only serve three clients at a time,” said Diane Nichols, president from 2005-2013.
“We started with 18 clients and have grown to 200 weekly,” said Dorothy Ellher, the volunteer coordinator,who has been there from day one.
Ellher said that the organization has about 110 volunteers, with more than 30 helping distribute food each Tuesday.
“They show up and everyone knows what to do,” she said. “It is mind boggling, how it runs so smooth.”
Wally Saffran, the pantry’s first manager, said he worked four to five hours a day in the beginning, picking up supplies, repacking and sorting, and stocking the shelves. Saffran said he still enjoys helping out.
The pantry was open one day a month at first, then expanded to weekly hours in January 2006.
Nichols said as time went on pantry organizers knew they needed more room. Once the pantry was offered 50 turkeys but had to refuse, because it didn’t have any place to put them.
The group purchased a vacant building at 520 N. Locust St. in Oconto Falls in 2007 and paid for it in 3½ years. They were able to add on to the building with the help of volunteers and many items provided at cost.
Shaun Jacquet, the present Kingdom Come president, knows what it’s like to not have food. At the anniversary, he told an emotional story of when he was a little boy, standing in line in a similar setting and how blessed he felt. Jacquet said God placed it on his heart to be involved and to use the leadership skills he had been given.
Jacquet credits the pantry’s success to the amazing volunteers who provide everything needed for it to work.
“God is blessing the pantry over and over again, and this is the best year so far,” he said.
Jacquet said when the group decided to blacktop the parking lot, it didn’t have the money. Members were challenged to proceed on faith. On the day they were breaking ground, $20,000 came in to complete the work.
“God is blessing them … and the pantry has progressed way beyond anyone’s expectations,” Nichols said.
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