Take what you need, and leave what you can.
That’s the motto of the donation/pick-up box sitting in front of Tami Stoddard’s home at 2345 Prospect Ave. People are welcome to take canned goods, hats, diapers and leave alike items. She checks her River Cities Little Free Pantry box twice a day, and stocks up when she can (she gave an example of buying 40-or-so boxes of cereal when they go on sale for under 99 cents).
The small pantry, made with help from the city of Clinton and Home Depot, is part of the bigger Little Free Pantry — a concept like the Little Free Library — and is nationwide. Jim Stoddard, Lisa’s husband, said for the people that come for the items, it’s no questions asked just as long as needs are being met.
Perhaps the little donation station is for the people that “kind of fall through the cracks,” Jim said, that make too much money for financial assistance but “are still struggling.”
“My son has been where some of these people are, and I’ve been able to help him,” Lisa said. “I hope that I can help others from what I am doing, and I hope others can see what I am doing and maybe help out — because one day maybe it might be them, you never know. Everyone knows someone who needs a helping hand, that’s what I want to do, I want to help them.”
However, Lisa is worried she won’t be able to fill the need. She said that eight people in the area have reached out to her over social media, looking for ways to start their own little pantry. Lisa had help from the the city’s engineering department for a little cement pad (so people don’t have to step in mud, according to Lisa) and Home Depot made the donation box. Not everyone may receive the help she had, but it’s about getting the funds together to do it.
Others have helped Lisa’s little pantry in other ways too with donations.
“I had a gentleman stop one day and ask me if this was my pantry and gave me a $25 Walmart gift card,” Lisa said. “He said, ‘I don’t know what you need, but here’s $25 for Walmart, go get what you need.’ That’s how I bought the socks and gloves and hats.”
Tami put up her little pantry on Oct. 20, and she at multiple points mentions how fast the items leave her street: “It goes so fast,” she said.
“(Food insecurity) is everywhere, but yeah, I feel that there is a need in Clinton and I feel it’s just going to get worse,” Tami said.
Cheryl McCulloh, executive director at United Way of Clinton County, uses the Asset, Limited Income Constrained, Employed (ALICE) — a data program that helps to explain financial insecurities. Twenty percent of Clinton County is represented in ALICE data (people that are working, but still struggle to pay bills) and 13 percent of the county lives below the poverty line.
United Way seeks to help people outside the poverty line — $11,670 yearly for an individual and $23,850 for a family of four — for when those seeking aid have higher annual salaries than those accepted by federal programs.
“Our definitions for poverty and what it takes to live on are based on the 1960s, and they really haven’t been updated or changed since then,” McCulloh said. “Back in the 1960s, things cost less for one thing, there were much fewer families that had two income wage earners. So, you didn’t have to pay for child care and people tended to live in a more compact neighborhood, so transportation costs (now) could be a little bit higher, too.”
