After moving back to Plymouth last summer, Rebecca Palmer decided to spearhead a food pantry service to help struggling members of her community — one that would have benefited her years ago as a single mother of five children.
Palmer created Caring Cupboards, a collection of six small, emergency food and household item pantries to be placed around Plymouth that will be open to anyone who needs the assistance. The cupboards, which are re-purposed newspaper vending machines, will be stocked by Palmer and community members willing to donate food, cleaning supplies and pet items.
“I know that feeling with having five kids, child support was always behind, and there was a couple of nights I had to borrow money from my neighbor because my check was still a few days away and the food pantries were closed at that time,” Palmer said. “If you’re working two jobs, you might not be able to go when the food pantries are open.”
Palmer based the initiative on 24/7 food pantry boxes, called Blessing Boxes, across Brownsburg, Ind. When she moved back to Plymouth, Palmer knew she wanted to bring the idea with her as well.
Recruiting her brother and the Marshall County Neighborhood Center to brainstorm ideas, they settled on newspaper boxes to use for storage because the boxes are weather resistant.
“If we can use recycled things like newspaper boxes, it’s a double win,” Palmer said. “You’re getting rid of those without running them in landfills, and you’re turning them into something amazing.”
The Marshall County Neighborhood Center offers several services to Plymouth and surrounding towns, including a food, household and clothing pantry, along with utility assistance and monthly workshops.
Chris Garner, executive director of the Neighborhood Center, said the center will see 50 to 100 households on any given week use the food pantry.
“From January to June, we served 1,261 households for our food pantry,” Garner said. “We’ve also had, since January, 300 new households. So while we do see a lot of people on a month-to-month basis, we also have several new households.”
While the Marshall County Neighborhood Center stays open at various times throughout the week for working people, Caring Cupboards will be open 24/7.
In the winter, Palmer said, cans of food will be replaced with powdered items, including instant mashed potatoes and macaroni and cheese, but the household supplies will remain in the cupboards year-round.
While she initially hoped to place her cupboards in the parks in Plymouth, city officials advised her to ask the police and fire departments for a place to keep the cupboards to deter vandalism.
While two cupboards have been approved for the fire and police stations in Plymouth, Palmer said she will continue to seek permission elsewhere and hopes to put one outside her own home.
“It looks like this could go outside of Plymouth,” Palmer said. “I’ve been approached from one of my friends in St. Louis, and my daughter in Tampa, so I would like to keep this as my nonprofit. Wherever there’s a need, we have to go there.”
