Food Goong: Feathers and Fleece 4-H Builds, Installs Little Food Pantries

Sometimes people think of 4-H as a youth organization that only focuses on raising livestock for auction or sewing dresses, or riding horses at the fair. But the 4-H pledge has a lot more to do with service.

By Margo Brugger, News Reporter

“I pledge … My Head to clearer thinking, My Heart to greater loyalty, My Hands to larger service and My Health to better living for my club, my community, my country, and my world.”

Sometimes people think of 4-H as a youth organization that only focuses on raising livestock for auction or sewing dresses, or riding horses at the fair.

But the 4-H pledge has a lot more to do with service.

I am proud to report that Feathers and Fleece 4-H Club is in the process of finishing up and installing three new little food pantries in Geauga County. These look a lot like the free libraries you see all over the place now, except they have cans, boxes and jars of food on the shelves.

“I pledge to serve my community.”

About six months ago, we started discussing what service projects we wanted to do as a club this year. Many of us had helped the Geauga Hunger Task Force before, either collecting nonperishable food items or stocking shelves at one of the local pantries.

The larger food pantries are great, but what if you run out of food in the middle of the night, or you cannot go back to the big pantry until it opens in a few days? That’s where the “little” food pantries come in. A Girl Scout project in Chardon a few years ago led to the first area little food pantry, and our club members wanted to see if we could build more of these to help the needy member of our community.

Two of our new advisors, Mr. and Mrs. Buss, took the lead to find donations and buy up the wood and supplies. Mr. Buss and another one of our club advisors, Mr. Ray, cut the wood into smaller pieces that members could put together to build three different little pantries. After the pantries were built, we met at our lead advisor’s house, Mrs. Ray’s, to cover them with primer and the finishing coat of paint. This took a week, so everything could dry. We were close to being done!

Next, we had to find places to dig holes and install these. We have two locations picked out so far: behind the Middlefield Village Fire Department and at the Great Geauga County Fairgrounds.

Wednesday, June 9, was a big day. About a dozen club members, parents and all the advisors met at the fire station that night to finish attaching the pole and show the village maintenance team where we wanted the first little pantry to be installed. We also brought several bags of food to fill up this first pantry.

The Senior Fair Board is allowing us to install the next one at the fairgrounds July 6. And then we just need to find a third location.

While we are making blankets for veterans and will collect toiletries for WomenSafe, just like in past years, the club is really focused on keeping the little pantries we built filled up for our community and maybe adding more little pantries in the future. Hopefully, someday, the need for pantries will go away, but for now, we are happy to do our best helping the community.

Maple Leaf Editor’s Note: Jaime Fisher, R.N., ASN, DEM, of Fisher Integrated Care LLC, which offers expanded care options at the Middlefield Care Center, donated the money to build the three pantries.