Showing entries tagged: 'pantry'

Hunger Fighter in Action: Lana Raffensperger

Lana Raffensperger is a dedicated Hunger Fighter whose childhood experience with hunger inspired a lifelong passion to help people who do not have enough food. Among the many ways she volunteers to help her community, for the past ten years, Lana has been responsible for gathering volunteers for Second Harvest Southern Wisconsin’s mobile pantry in Beaver Dam. Currently year-round outdoors, Lana’s tireless outreach and joyful leadership (often in costumes!) inspires new and returning volunteers to come together monthly to unload the large truck, organize the food, and serve their neighbors as they put much needed food in cars with a smile. 

Meeting Clients

Inspiration in Eau Claire

In late March, our executive director met some inspiring hunger fighters in West Central Wisconsin at Feed My People Food Bank's Partner Agency Conference.

The Rise of College Food Pantries

When I was traveling the country doing focus groups on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, known as FoodShare in Wisconsin), it became very clear that people with only partial college have it really tough. They are often saddled with debt and having stopped their college course load, they don't have the degree to get the job that would help to get them out of debt. Partial college with debt is like an albatross dragging people from reaching their full potential. And as we are learning, the line between simply being the proverbial poor college student and being a someone with partial college is razor thin.

Somebody to Wish Them Well

For the last three days, we have been training the new FoodShare Outreach staff that will be working in local communities throughout the state to provide high quality information and assistance to people who may be eligible for this important nutrition assistance program. As we left the pantry, I noticed this quote from Mother Teresa, which was printed out on nine sheets of 8x11 sheets of paper and pieced together on a huge piece of poster board. It gave me the feels.