The church, which was adopted into the Evangelical Covenant Church this year, expects to serve 4,000 people this month through Food for Thought. The congregation ultimately formed Food for Thought as a separate 501(c3). It continues to operate out of New Harvest’s building with the assistance of 100 volunteers.
“It just snowballed,” says Don Schiewer, who is director of Food for Thought and pastor of servanthood ministries at New Harvest.
The ministry puts a twist on traditional outreaches to low-income and homeless families. Most recently, Food for Thought has begun bringing goods to the people who can’t come to a pantry located in the church. They have started what Schiewer believes is the area’s only mobile food pantry.
Physical disabilities or the lack of transportation can prevent people from accessing the needed services at brick-and-mortar locations, Schiewer says. So ministry leaders began to ask, “How can we get food to them without it becoming a pizza delivery service?”
The answer was the custom-built, 17-foot trailer that is handicapped accessible. Since it started just before Thanksgiving last year, the mobile pantry has been making multiple trips each week throughout the Toledo suburbs.
“Suburban poverty is becoming a reality,” Schiewer emphasizes.
To determine where the mobile pantry will travel, Schiewer looks up pantry addresses on a map and then draws a circle representing a 1.5-mile radius around each. If the area has a high enough population density, he will work with local churches and organizations to bring the mobile pantry so that it can be accessed. The organizations publicize the pantry.
Schiewer says each trip requires $700 in financial and food donations. The nonprofit is able to stretch each dollar because it can purchase food for 18 cents a pound.
A local elementary school recently raised $1,300 in change when classrooms competed against each other. Food for Thought brought the mobile pantry by the school so the students could walk through and see what their money was funding (accompanying photos).
Schiewer hopes to add more mobile units and sell advertising on the side of the vehicles to help pay the operating expenses.
The nonprofit also operates a food pantry inside the church. Unlike most food pantries, which bag food for the recipients, Food for Thought allows people to “shop” through the aisles of food and pick what they want. When the pantry first opened, people may have hoarded food, but that is no longer the case. “The people learn to trust that we are going to be there.” Schiewer says. “They stopped feeling the need to hoard.”
Schiewer says the initial motive to hoard is understandable. “We view it as greedy and unappreciative, but it’s about caring for their family,” he says. “If you don’t take as much as you can, there might not be food later.”
Understanding the perspective of the needy is important, Schiewer says. “We’re also about educating ‘the haves’ about the ‘have-nots.’ ”
Part of that understanding includes learning how to treat people being assisted. Three years ago, the church housed a pantry that was located in the back of the church in what was essentially a storeroom. To access the room, people had to come in a back door. At the time, it serviced roughly six families.
The congregation has moved the pantry to a large bright room toward the front of the church. “It’s about always treating people with dignity,” Schiewer says.
The church also continues to operate a ministry that is a direct outgrowth of that initial foray with the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
Every Friday night, volunteers gather at the church to make more than 300 brown bag lunches, pack breakfast foods that include bagels and cream cheese, and make 200 snack bags. They also fill plastic tubs with various hygiene products, pack coolers full of juice and water, and sort through donated clothes and household items to fill both specific requests and general needs.
On Saturday morning, rain or shine, they set up next to the main library in Toledo and distribute what they packed the night before. Volunteers often bring special items such as flowers, cupcakes, and candy. Others may provide music – two street magicians recently entertained the people.
“It feels like we’re bringing a carnival into town,” Schiewer quips.
Schiewer says the most important thing the ministry offers is friendship, because “People are as hungry for relationships as they are for food.”
The ministry is cooperating with other agencies to provide social services as part of a newly formed Community Asset & Resource Engagement (CARE) team. The partnership has supplied free smoke detectors donated by the Toledo Fire Department, and free blood pressure tests through a local health association, as well as medical services. Food for Thought serves as the eyes and ears for the cooperating organizations because the ministry often is the first to encounter people with needs.
Schiewer can hardly believe how much the ministry has expanded. “We just shake our heads in amazement.”
