Sue Chvatik has been a volunteer and client of The BRICK Ministries food shelf services for about seven years and can personally attest to the impact the food pantry has on lives in the community.
“Once you’re on a fixed income, it’s really difficult to make ends meet,” she said.
Being able to visit the food shelf and pick up a couple days supply of groceries can be very helpful for Chvatik, who is on disability, and other clients trying to make ends meet. The sense of camaraderie between the volunteers and consumers is another benefit Chvatik has observed at The Brick
“The volunteers here after you come in for a while, they all know you when you come in … it’s not like going through a mill where you don’t know anybody,” she said. Volunteers take an interest in the health and wellbeing of those they serve, helping them to make smart choices and stretch paychecks.
The BRICK Ministries should be able to stretch those checks even further with the help of a grant it learned last week that it has won.
The ministry and Ashland’s New Day Advocacy Center were awarded grants from the Compeer Financial Fund for Rural America, the corporate giving program of Compeer Financial, a member-owned farm credit cooperative that serves the upper Midwest.
The BRICK Ministries Executive Director Liz Seefeldt said Compeer awarded her program $10,000 to help offset costs related to the pantry.
“Last year we got a grant for our food shelf program for $2,500,” she said. That grant came from AgStar Financial Services before it merged into what is now Compeer.
“I think it’s a strong indicator that we got a grant award from them two years in a row even though their organization evolved,” she said. “We are certainly grateful for the support and definitely grateful to the increased support which just makes our services that we provide stronger so that we can reach more people and do it a little more robustly.”
As a nonprofit that doesn’t have any fee for its services, the ministry relies upon support it receives. Last year, the pantry had nearly 3,200 people enrolled in the program and served approximately 1,500 people per month between four food shelf locations in Ashland, Cable, Cornucopia and Mellen.
“The nature of our work is that we serve the low-income residents of Ashland and Bayfield counties … folks who can’t afford to buy food,” she said. “The financial support that we get from every sector is really essential to us being able to continue providing those services.”
While a majority of the food is rescued and donated, Seefeldt estimated that about a quarter of the food that the pantry distributes is purchased.
“If we only relied on in-kind donations then we’d have all of one kind of canned green beans and nothing else on the shelves, theoretically,” she said. The pantry buys food to fill gaps in what is donated. Roughly 3,500 meals will be provided thanks to the $10,000 in grant funding.
“What that does for our consumers who go through the pantry is they are able to have a selection of food items,” said Seefeldt. “The industry standard is to have a choice pantry rather than a prepackaged box or bag of food. In a choice pantry like our pantry program, the consumer goes through and makes their own selections because they know best what is going to work in their house.”
The New Day Advocacy Center, a non-profit dedicated to helping victims of violence and abuse, was awarded a $2,000 grant, which will be used to upgrade the center’s security system, Executive Director Kathy Roper said.
“We’re renovating the building we bought at 301 Ellis Ave. and we needed additional money for the installation of our security system,” she said.
With improvements such as the additional security cameras, photoelectric smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors, the new system will provide the center with more comprehensive coverage, Roper said.
“We’re very excited,” she said. “We’re very grateful to Compeer Financial.”
