By Molly Roberts
Busy. That’s the first thing Kalona City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh said about the city’s pop-up, drive-thru food pantry on Saturday, Dec. 19. He estimated that 100 cars came through to pick up food boxes within the first 45 minutes of the event.
“It was very busy,” said city councilor Joe Schmidt who helped at the pantry on Saturday. “For about the entire first hour, I don’t think we took a breath. I was really impressed by the organization. We’re becoming a well-oiled food pantry machine.”
The pop-up pantry served 212 large boxes of food this time around, including over two dozen extra boxes available to anyone who couldn’t make it to the two-hour event. Schlabaugh said that, in addition to making deliveries the day of, the city tries to keep boxes available around the time of a pop-up pantry so it only takes a couple minutes to set someone up with food.
The City of Kalona is hosting a pre-Christmas “Pop Up Food Pantry” this Saturday.
City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh says they’ll have 200 food boxes available and those in need can drive-up between 9 a.m. and 11 a.m. at the Public Works building
at 711 A Avenue in Kalona. Schlabaugh says the City has worked to provide families with a variety of food items, “We do take a lot of pride to craft the boxes with a lot of meal options. To try to supplement them to make sure there are good items for children, for families so they’ve got some good food options in there.”
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By Molly Roberts
It all started with a donation from Jessica Hochstedler Yoder and Yoder & Bigley Relators, who stepped forward to donate hot meals to area seniors every Thursday in January and February. That got the conversation going between Kalona City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh and Wellman City Administrator Kelly Litwiller about how to best meet the needs of seniors in the community.
The Cities of Kalona and Wellman are partnering to piggy-back off that donation to provide hot meals to seniors on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as well.
“The need for seniors was out there,” Schlabaugh said. “They weren’t necessarily using the pop-up pantries because they didn’t need the bulk food. The pop-up pantry boxes would be 40-50 pounds and a lot of seniors didn’t feel comfortable getting those because it was just too much.”
KCII’s Caring Christmas Food Drive collects food and monetary donations to give to area food pantries, many of which have seen an increased need or have had to adjust their operations during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Church of God Food Bank in Washington is one of the Caring Christmas Food Drive’s recipients and has operated for over a decade. Anyone is welcome to receive food from the church, typically on the fourth Thursday of the month from 1:30-4:30 p.m., though because of the upcoming holidays they will be open on December 17th. Coordinator Dean Elmore explains that since the pandemic they have distributed food boxes on the east side of the building instead of allowing visitors inside, “We have a table set out there and they call and tell us whether we need to get the box ready, take it out there and set it on the table. And then we get a box of frozen food too, meat and stuff and put it out there, and then they come out there and they pick it up and take it and go. That