On the level: New Portage Food Pantry gets raves from users, volunteers - Portage Daily Register

On the level: New Portage Food Pantry gets raves from users, volunteers - Portage Daily Register

Sue Jones summed up her feelings about the new Portage Food Pantry location in six words: “Oh, my gosh, what a blessing!”

Jones, of Portage, uses a wheelchair. When the pantry was located in the basement of St. John the Baptist Episcopal Church, 211 W. Pleasant St., she had to find a friend who was able and willing to climb up and down 10 steep steps.

But the new pantry location, at an old pump house at 405 E. Howard St., Jones can pick up her own food, and carry it out in reusable cloth sacks whose handles fit on the back of her wheelchair.

“I always try to be independent,” said Jones, whose mobility is limited by the effects of Type 2 diabetes.

Food pantry volunteers also sing the praises of the single-level, climate-controlled space where the Portage Food Pantry has operated for about two months.

“It’s much bigger,” said longtime volunteer John Culton. “We’re able to serve the people faster.”

Volunteers converted the brick building in Lincoln Park -- which the city had, until recently, used for storage -- to a place where there’s ample room for pantry users to wait indoors, even when the line is long, as it was on Thursday afternoon.

The remodeling of the space included a pass-through window, through which volunteers distribute groceries to recipients. (The pantry also has toilet paper, soap and, when someone donates them, other personal-care items.)

And in the lobby area, there is now room for an additional service for those who use the food pantry.

Caitlin Richardson, nutrition educator for the University of Wisconsin-Extension (serving both Columbia and Dodge counties), set up a table with information about the Extension’s monthly free “Cooking with Local Foods” programs, held on the fourth Thursday of the month during the growing season. The final session for this season will be Sept. 22.

Richardson also offered cookbooks, stickers with messages like “I love vegetables” and neck pendants with the slogan “Good nutrition starts at my plate.”

While their mothers were waiting in the food pantry line, two girls, each about 8, chatted with Richardson about their cooking experience. One said she’d made a pizza.

“Did you put vegetables on it” Richardson asked, and reacted with mock surprise when the child said no.

Barb Chesney, coordinator of the food pantry, said she can’t say enough about how grateful she is to the people of St. John the Baptist Church for providing a location in the church basement since the pantry was inaugurated in 1981.

The steep steps, however, posed a challenge, she acknowledged -- not only for the people who use the food pantry, but also for the more than 50 volunteers who operate it.

“It’s 10 steps down and 10 steps up,” she said. “I think all of our volunteers are just delighted that the new location is on the ground level.”

Culton noted, too, that it’s much easier to receive and shelve donated food, through a spacious back side door.

“It’s a lot faster,” he said, “and not as back-breaking.”

The shelves, Culton acknowledged, are a little barer than he’d like.

Few organizations hold food drives at this time of year, he said, though the pantry is expecting a delivery of food from the U.S. Department of Agriculture any day now.

And, with additional refrigerator and freezer space, the pantry can keep and distribute more perishable foods.

“Now all we have to do,” Culton said, “is fill ‘er up.”