By Amber Arizmendi | March 7, 2025
I was given the terrifying privilege of managing the Fighting Saints Food Pantry at Carroll College as part of my service. It is not often a person has the responsibility and privilege of providing food stuffs for a hungry college population. Even less likely is the freedom of direction afforded to someone who has only ever used a pantry. I have learned, painfully so as is so often the case, that this responsibility is managed with more than just good intention and will. It needs hard skills in budgeting, management of resources and people, and tenacity. I like to think that I have at least some skill in these areas, but the work of the Fighting Saints Food Pantry has tested my assumptions on more than one occasion over the last few months. For every successful food drive, see here,https://www.carroll.edu/news-events/news/community-caring-carroll-broadwater-elementarys-mutual-bond
There was failure of accounting for grant funds that could have spelled disaster due to a lack of funds for the pantry. These lessons have compounded to teach me to tread more carefully in my work, and that time is not better used when rushed. Nor, I would say, can time be wasted in waiting. This is exemplified in my work with finding and retaining volunteers. The first semester working the pantry, I was hounding for volunteers. But emails went un-responded to, phone calls connected, but no volunteer hours materialized. It was frustrating. Here I was, working to do good, yet getting none of the outcomes I so wanted. This was the trend for the Fall semester, and I had no hope that the Spring would bring anything different. But I was astonished when I began to get phone calls and prompt responses to emails. Now I am creating sign up sheets and email chains to manage all the offers of volunteers. I needed patience to get the reward of persistence. I was so excited to get the work done, I did not appreciate the adjustment time needed by Carroll College and its students.
One of my main goals for the pantry is expansion and sustainability. When I arrived, the pantry had a stagnant list of products that had not been reevaluated in years. These products were mostly canned, non-dietary restriction conscious items. There was very little consideration for limits of how much a single person could take, so that many of the high shopped items would be taken right away, so I saw that there was very little left after the first hour. In addition, there was only a paper tally system in place to track what type and number of persons was shopping in the pantry. This meant that only the person running the pantry would know that number. This was the same with the budget, if it was tracked, it was only in the mind of the person shopping. But this is the whole reason I was brought in. I say these truths not to be mean, but only to exemplify the situation that I was walking into. I had never managed something so big and important, and I made a lot of mistakes. See the budgeting and volunteer situations above. What to do? I knew what I wanted to do, now I just needed to find the solutions.
First, expand the sources of funding/donations. As I have said, the first problem with pantries stability that I saw was the fast that everything, save some frozen meat, was bought from a singular grant from Town Pump. In other words, if the Town Pump grant ran out or was not renewed, the pantry was done. To solve this, I wanted another source of money, and to look for places that may be willing to donate food stuffs at little or no cost. For the first point, Carroll College has a yearly event called Saints Giving Day, Here
I am collaborating with the wonderful people at Carroll College to make this day successful for the pantry. This includes tapping into the fountain of food pantry knowledge Jonathyn Jannot and the tireless support of Annette Walstead. They have both provided me with wellsprings from which I will be better able to make the Saints Giving Day drive a success. These funds, and we sure hope the giving will be philanthropic, will help cushion the funds from the Town Pump grant. In addition to this, I worked to strengthen our bonds with Helena Food Share and build reciprocation with Broadwater Elementary School through a home goods drive. Link above to learn more about that. Helena Food Shares Kara Snyder, along with the rest of the team there, have been cohorts in food pantry work and donations, and have inspired me in more ways than I can possibly list here. Check them out here.
Second, expand the variety of foods in the pantry. One of my first moves was to send out a survey to all students of Carroll College. This was to ask, in so little words, does the pantry meet your needs? In time? Items? Etc.? I wanted to know what our students needed, and I got responses from 25 people. This may not seem like much, but I was delighted that this first ask of mine out to the Carroll Community did not no unheard. I found that students needed gluten and dairy free items, frozen instead of canned foods, and suggested that the pantry was accessible at some different times. The time shift on some days has been a great change that a lot of students, I am seeing both new and returning students using the new system to great effect. The item asks were a struggle, budgetarily speaking. Gluten and dairy-free items are more expensive, as is frozen fruit. It was tough, but a careful consideration of the money needed, and places shopped make all the difference.
I can now say, with full confidence, that I have been given the opportunity to run a pantry. Did I do a good job? That is for others to say.
Have I learned a lot? More than I ever imagined.