New Portage Food Pantry holds grand opening - WiscNews

Wednesday’s grand opening of the new Portage Food Pantry location was the celebration of something that started with a strange and serendipitous request.

Gayle Mack, who works in the building design division of Portage’s General Engineering Corp., made a request that baffled Parks and Recreation Manager Dan Kremer: Let me see the inside of that old brick building in Lincoln Park.

That old brick building -- a former pump house that had been used for storage -- is now the spacious, single-story location for the Portage Food Pantry.

Dozens gathered early Wednesday evening for a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the pantry, 405 E. Howard St., partly to reflect on the journey that brought them there.

That journey actually started 35 years ago, said founding Food Pantry Board Member Charles Bradley, when the Rev. Keith Whitmore -- then an Episcopal priest serving in Portage, now the assistant bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta -- proposed creating an ecumenical ministry to provide food for people who had fallen on hard times.

“I was really grateful,” Bradley said, “to see that the whole community stood up in support of the project.”

Since its 1981 inception, the Portage Food Pantry had been located in the basement of St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, 211 W. Pleasant St. But pantry volunteers wanted more space, and wanted it on one level, so that it would be accessible for volunteers and users.

Mayor Rick Dodd recalled the pantry’s former location.

“It was a real bear to get that stuff down the stairs, and for the people to haul it back up the stairs,” he said.

The search for a more spacious and accessible location came to an end, however, when Kremer granted Mack’s request for a tour of the old pump house.

City Administrator Shawn Murphy said the building, at the time of the tour about two years ago, was used for storage.

“We had pulled out all of the plumbing and heating, and we basically used it as a closet,” he said.

The place needed work, according to Mack. The floors were uneven and had to be leveled. A bathroom had to be installed, to serve both pantry patrons and people who use Lincoln Park. The building needed a new roof. And, changes needed to be made in the interior to ensure accessibility and security -- namely, adding a pass-through window where patrons can pick up their food.

The bathroom’s construction was a partnership between the city and the Food Pantry board, and the city put on the roof. The city continues to own the building, but there’s a memorandum of understanding designating it as the Portage Food Pantry’s location.

A sign inside the pantry noted that, since 1992, the pantry had served 97,458 individuals and 37,484 households.

Bradley said none of that would have happened without the support, from the beginning, of Portage area individuals, organizations and congregations.

“Right away, they started bringing food,” he said, “and we were ready for our first call.”