The FOOD Pantry Serving Waukesha County

The FOOD Pantry was fortunate to again be chosen to be Wilde Subaru's partner for their 2024 annual Share the Love Event. From November 21, 2024, until January 2, 2025, Wilde Subaru donated $250 per vehicle sold or leased, and $5 for every routine service visit to The FOOD Pantry. This past Friday we learned this year's Share the Love event exceeded our wildest expectations and they will be donating $50,566 to The FOOD Pantry! We are overwhelmed with the response the Share the Love campaign had and appreciate everyone who supported our partner, Wilde Subaru, by purchasing or leasing a car or getting your car serviced by them during this time. We appreciate support from local companies such as Wilde Subaru, and are in awe of our donors and volunteers who go out of their way to support local companies who support The FOOD Pantry. The Waukesha community has continuously shown their generosity and support of The FOOD Pantry and our partners. Thank you Wilde Subaru for sharing the love throughout the community year round.

This past month, we have highlighted how we recycle plastics and cardboard, reduce waste by working with local farmers, and work with local grocers to reduce waste through the food recovery program. Next, to further reduce organic waste in landfills, The FOOD Pantry has had a contract with COMPOST CRUSADER since June 2022 to compost organic materials like fruits and vegetables that are not handed out to clients. The organic material is sent to Blue Ribbon Organics in Caledonia, Wisconsin where a father/son team turn our food waste into compost in approximately 90 days. Since this start of this contract, approximately 64,200 pounds of organic materials have been diverted from landfills to Blue Ribbon Organics.

Calling all gardeners—did you know that we accept surplus garden produce??When gardens are producing lots of fruits and vegetables, it can be overwhelming.?The FOOD Pantry can come to your rescue.?We are happy to take surplus garden produce off your hands.?Our clients are grateful for your willingness to share your produce abundance.?All you need to do is drop off the produce Monday-Friday from 8:30 am-4:30 pm at door #5.?During the Wisconsin growing season, we have a produce rack near the door for your donations and we share all of the donated produce with our clients.?Some of our local gardeners even grow extra produce knowing that our clients are grateful for their donation.?A shining example of this generosity is Eaton Corporation’s Garden of Eaton.?Eaton employees grow a 62’ by 42’ garden annually and provide ALL of the produce to the pantry which was 1,200 pounds of produce last year.?Eaton not only supports our operation through their garden donations, group volunteer activities, and donations to support our operation but they are also our Champion Sponsor for this year’s Breakfast Club Fundraiser.?Thank you Eaton for your continued support! Although the weather may be disappointing today, we know that spring and summer are right around the corner.?Please consider donating your surplus produce to The FOOD Pantry.??

The Environmental Protection Agency has identified several ways to reduce the environmental impact of surplus food including utilizing that food to feed animals. The FOOD Pantry Serving Waukesha County has relationships with local farmers so that food we can no longer safely provide to clients, can be provided to farmers as animal feed. Craig, one of our farmers who uses expired pantry food for his chickens and pigs, mentioned the following: “This is a win-win-win. The pantry is able to keep their food disposal costs down. I’m able to keep my animal feed costs down. We are able to keep food out of landfills. This partnership is an excellent way to support the environment.” The pantry has farmers pick up every afternoon, Monday through Friday. Thank you to all of our farmers who ensure we keep food out of our landfills.

Gross Automation visited us this past week and delivered 368 pounds of food they collected during their February food drive. Thank you to Gross Automation and your employees for supporting The FOOD Pantry and the people we serve. If you would like to do a food drive to benefit The FOOD Pantry, please go to our website and complete the form, https://lnkd.in/gqSpANq7 . We will bring a collection barrel to your location and pick it up when your drive is complete. If you want to host a food drive and deliver the food yourself, you can do so Monday through Friday from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. Please come to Door 5 with your donation.

On Tuesday, The FOOD Pantry had the pleasure of hosting Kathy Conrad and Diane Voit from 100 Women Who Care Waukesha County. They received a tour of The Pantry and gathered more information on the services we provide as well as our recycling efforts which strive to eliminate as much waste as possible. At the end of the tour, Kathy presented our Executive Director, Lyndsay Johnson, with a check from 100 Women Who Care Waukesha County. Their support will total over $15,000 to The FOOD Pantry which allows us to meet the needs of our clients and community by providing nutritious food. The Food Pantry staff, volunteers and Board of Directors want to extend our most sincere appreciation to every member of 100 Women Who Care Waukesha County who choose to support our mission this year. A special thank you to Ann Schoper, a volunteer at The Pantry and member of 100 Women Who Care Waukesha Co, for nominating us for this gift.

The FOOD Pantry does its part to reduce waste and conserve resources through recycling. The Pantry works with Allied Resource Recovery (ARR) a business located in Waukesha, for cardboard recycling. Much of the Pantry’s food comes in cardboard so the Pantry has a lot to recycle. ARR has provided the pantry with a 30-yard dumpster for cardboard. Once full, the cardboard is milled in their Waukesha plant and taken to a paper plant in Appleton where it is made into new paper products. The Pantry is grateful for ARR’s support because the Pantry receives the dumpster for free and is even paid for the cardboard that is recycled! In 2024, the Pantry recycled nearly 40 tons of cardboard! Thank you ARR for your support of the FOOD Pantry. Plastic recycling is also important as many of our pallets of food are shrink wrapped for secure transport. The Pantry has an arrangement with Trex Company to recycle stretch plastic into Trex decking. As a thank you for donating 1,000 pounds of plastic in a year, the pantry received a Trex furniture bench which will be auctioned off at the May Breakfast Club fundraising event.

We had the pleasure of hosting longtime supporter of The FOOD Pantry Eaton today. They presented us with a donation of $530 in grocery gift cards we can use to purchase needed food items, such as cereal, pasta and rice. Thank you Eaton for supporting our mission and the people we serve.

Food recovery is a powerful way to address food insecurity and food waste simultaneously. Food recovery involves rescuing surplus food, that would otherwise be discarded and redistributing it to those individuals in need. It’s a simple concept with significant results. The FOOD Pantry Serving Waukesha County participates in the food recovery program through Feeding America. Through the food recovery program, the Pantry promotes sustainability by distributing surplus food from local businesses, farmers, and grocery stores to our clients. In 2024, the FOOD Pantry distributed 679,624 pounds of food donated through the food recovery program! Some of the grocery stores that we secure food from include: ALDI USA, Fresh Thyme Market, Target, Walmart, Sara Lee Bread, Trader Joe's , Sentry Delafield, Roberts' Specialty Meats, Pick 'n Save, Meijer, Sendik's Food Market, Roundy's Distribution Center, Old Dutch Foods, Good Harvest Market and Hop Harvest & Vine, and Health Hut. According to one of our store partners, “We appreciate this partnership because we have items that we can donate. We would rather donate the food than throw it.” Thank you to all of our grocery store partners for supporting the pantry with your food recovery donations. Your generosity ensures our clients have access to a variety of foods including fresh fruits and vegetables, bread, meat, dairy, and eggs.

After the rain, sleet and snow yesterday, who doesn't love some soup to warm up? At The FOOD Pantry, we have an extra special reason to love soup. Today, Silgan Containers donated 15 pallets of soup and 2 pallets of a mixture of fruits, vegetables, and other canned goods - or 29,497 pounds of food! This is nearly 10x the amount they raised last year during their food drive competition with their sister organizations in other states and we are immensely grateful to be their recipient of choice. Many of these donations will be on the shelves tomorrow and provide our clients with a variety of options over the next couple of months. Silgan Containers thank you for the generosity of your employees and organization, thank you for helping make it easy for our driver to pickup this generous donation, and thank you for supporting our mission and the people we serve.