Menard’s Hosting Food Drive For FDL Salvation Army Food Pantry

From left,  Menards Assistant General Manager Brian Magyar, Salvation Army Director of Social Services Ron Jacobson and Food Pantry Coordinator Kurt Schuller and Menards Associate Savanna Baker stand in the grocery aisles in Menards.  

Much of the community shops for groceries in stores with aisles such as these.  Six percent of the households in FdL County’s Healthy 2020 Survey, “reported that sometime in the past year, their household was hungry, but didn’t eat because they couldn’t afford enough food.”  For those struggling, there are food pantries.  Menards is hosting a food collection through April, asking shoppers to pick up an extra item to fill the grocery aisles at The Salvation Army Food Pantry.  The Salvation Army Food Pantry is Fond du Lac’s largest food pantry, freely distributing upwards of 700 tons of food annually. 

“Our food pantry helps people who’ve fallen on hard times,” says Pantry Coordinator Kurt Schuller, “like the grey haired couple who came to us with calloused hands and backs bent from years of working farmland that had been in the family for generations, until cancer took his health, their life savings, the farm and their dignity.”

The pantry is arranged to look like a marketplace and clients can “shop” the shelves, choosing from the array of donations which items best meet their family’s needs. Social Services Director Ron Jacobson says the impact of the food pantry can’t be overstated.  One client sent a thank you note, writing, “I’ve lost 115 lbs. because I didn’t have food other than eggs to eat until my friend suggested I come to your food pantry.  God Bless you for giving!”

  

Brian Magyar, Menards Assistant Store Manager coordinated the store collection, saying, “Boxed cereal, canned fruit, soup, jelly, pasta,  pasta sauce,  Mac ‘n cheese,  Rice ‘a Roni, Hamburger Helper, instant mashed potatoes, fruit juice (48 to 64 oz.), peanut butter, canned meat/fish, are the items The Salvation Army food pantry is in constant need of and that’s what we’re hoping community will help us collect.”