A small blue pantry outside the Payson city offices is looking to fill the needs and stomachs of community members.
The cupboard, which was just installed a few weeks ago, is stocked with food anyone can take and is always open for people to add donations to.
Elk Ridge resident Erin Mecklenburg started the Payson Food Pantry, with the help of her family, neighbors and Payson city officials, to help put a bit of a dent in food insecurity.
“People struggling with food insecurity is something that really gets to me because it’s not because there is not enough food in the world,” she said. “We don’t have a food shortage. It just doesn’t get distributed to the people who need it always.”
The pantry, which is located on Utah Avenue near 400 West, has been well received so far, Mecklenburg said.
“I go check on it about every day, and within a week I saw food in there we hadn’t put in there. So I was like, ‘Great, people are doing it,’ and I saw food missing, too. That was really exciting.”
Mecklenburg said the idea of a Little Free Pantry resonated with her because, in addition to her concerns about food insecurity, was how such a simple project could help so many people.
“I think sometimes you think helping other people is complicated and kind of hard,” she said. “I’m not going to go out and start my own nonprofit or whatever, but building a little cupboard and putting some food in it is something that people can do.”
Mecklenburg first got the idea to build a Little Free Pantry in her community after reading an article about the woman who started the movement in her Arkansas town.
“I read that article and thought, ‘Oh my gosh, what a cool thing to do. I want to do that.’ For a long time, I just thought about it and didn’t really do anything about it,” she said. “Then finally a few months ago, I was like, ‘OK, I’m going to do this.’”
She also went to the Payson City Council to get their approval for the project, since she wanted to put it in a place with more traffic.
“I live in Elk Ridge, and it’s kind of small and kind out of the way,” Mecklenburg said. “So I thought that maybe one in my neighborhood wouldn’t be that effective or useful. So I started to look at Payson, because it’s bigger and more people are passing through.”
When Mecklenburg brought the idea to the City Council, Payson City Manager David Tuckett said it was something they wanted to support.
“They were in favor of giving it a try, and I hope it works out well for certain people,” he said.
Tuckett said they weren’t familiar with the Little Free Pantries before Mecklenburg brought the idea to them, but he thinks it could be beneficial for the community.
“If it can help even one person, it would be a good idea,” he said. “I think the concept is good and if people will use it for the right reason and will support it, it will be good.”
Mecklenburg’s husband built the pantry, which isn’t very big. Her parents helped pay for supplies and she and her neighbors gathered the donations to stock the pantry.
“Now there are all these anonymous people that we will never know that have been putting the food in. That’s what is going to keep it going and that’s the point of it.”
