Tayven Essam bit his lip and reached down into a bucket full of yellow ticket stubs. Of the group of six people at the table surrounding him, he was the only one suited for making this raffle fair.
“He can't read quite yet,” said Mark Essam, “So he's the one that's going to draw the names.”
The Beatrice Community Food Pantry held its first raffle on Monday afternoon and gave away prizes including a rifle, a barbecue, gift cards and Huskers volleyball tickets. The group raised $4,803.34 over the last few months selling raffle tickets for $5 a piece along with other fundraising activities.
Tayven, standing on a metal folding chair in the basement of St. John Lutheran Church in Beatrice, reached into the white, five gallon bucket full of tickets and shuffled thoughtfully before pulling out a name. He looked at the ticket before handing it to Essam who read off the name of Susie Carpenter, who’d won a Mossburg Patriot 30-06 rifle, donated by Uncle Matt’s Guns of Beatrice.
Other winners included Linda Bierman who took home the barbecue donated by Westlake Ace Hardware, Ron Maschmeier who won a $50 Walmart gift card, Gerald Kleveland who won a $50 Shopko gift card and Pauline Bauer who took home the UNL volleyball tickets donated by a food pantry board member.
“This is the first fundraiser of this type that the food pantry has ever done,” said Sue Orwen who works with the pantry. “Hopefully the first annual.”
The money the Beatrice Community Food Pantry raised from the raffle tickets, selling popcorn at Traubel’s and from a donation jar at the Beatrice Farmers Market will allow the group to purchase more food said Karen Mains, pantry coordinator.
In a back room under the church sits a large, concrete room filled with food, ready to be given away to people in need. It smells a bit like bread in the storage room and the walls are lined with cans of vegetables, boxes of Hamburger and Tuna Helper and other non-perishable food items, as well as several refrigerators and freezers full of meat, eggs, butter, cheese and other staples.
The fridges are getting a little low right now, Mains said, especially since the group has had some of its most active months in recent history lately. In August, the group gave food to a total of 522 people—just seven people shy of their all time high a year before—and they’re starting to run a little low, especially on staples like bread, ground beef and pork.
The group also helps people struggling with rent or utility bills. They can help out by giving people in need a one-time $200 payment to help keep the lights on or to make sure they have a place to live. If they repay the money, she said, they have the option of using the service again.
On Nov. 3, the group will start bringing donation bags to homes around Beatrice for their annual holiday appeal. The pantry is asking for things like flour, pasta, peanut butter, soup, canned meats and vegetables, laundry soap, shampoo and other items that would be considered staples in any home or kitchen.
On Nov. 11, they’ll pick them up and bring them back to the pantry to be sorted. They’ve got 6,000 bags to give out and they’re hoping for a good-sized return.
Even if people can’t contribute to the food drive, she said, they’re open for donations all year round.
“They can bring it down any time,” she said. “We have a table right here with a sign and they can just bring their sacks in and just set it right on the table.”
Keeping hundreds of people in need fed throughout the year can be a real challenge, she said. Thanks to the participation of about 25 churches around Beatrice they can keep putting food on tables.
“If we didn't have churches, we wouldn't get through the year,” she said. “Maybe it's not a lot some months, but some months they bring in a bunch. It helps fill our shelves and helps serve the needy people.”
After the raffle, Essam was calling winners to know when and where they could pick up their prizes.
Getting off the phone with Maschmeier, Essam said they wouldn’t have to go far to redeem his Walmart gift card.
"He said, 'Take that card and give it back to Karen and have her spend that on services," Essam told Mains.
"Bless his heart," she said. "I'll hug him next time I see him."
