Kalona hopes to open food pantry in January

KALONA — City officials in Kalona say they tentatively plan to open a free food pantry by the first of the year, resuming efforts to address food insecurity that started early in the pandemic.

Kalona City Administrator Ryan Schlabaugh said the service would set up shop in the city-owned ambulance barn near Southtown, where it will take up about a third of the building. Organizers hope to make it less like a package distribution center and more like a grocery store, where people can pick whatever specific items they want from the shelves.

The goal is to offer visitors a wide selection of freezer items, seasonal produce, milk, cheese, eggs, bread and even hygiene products, not just non-perishable food.

“Instead of just saying, ‘Here’s a 50-pound box of food, we want to let them find the things that are more purposeful for their family,” Schlabaugh said. “Our goal is to have everything funded and in-place in November, December, and then we’ll look to hopefully kick it off the first of the year so we can hopefully meet some of those after-holiday demands.”

Schlabaugh said the city had considerable success with pop-up food pantries back in 2020, but eventually took a hiatus to assess the level of need based on hard data like school lunch programs, as well as a “gut feeling” based on the word around town.

They found the need didn’t go down by much. The city administrator said he hoped the new pantry would help consistently feed community members not just in Kalona, but from anywhere in the area.

“As you talk to some of the folks that are experiencing some needs, it quickly becomes apparent that there’s more out there than just maybe what we were seeing,” Schlabaugh said. “Our goal is not to compete, but to supplement and expand the availability of food for those that need it.”

Kalona plans to spearhead the project, but Schlabaugh said it would reach out for coordination with local churches, Mid-Prairie schools, HACAP and nonprofit groups to ensure volunteers and food supply at the facility.

It costs the city around $200-$300 to offer 250 boxes, each with about 50 pounds of food, based on rough numbers from its pop-up pantries. Schlabaugh said the low cost was thanks to free contributions from larger groups that buy food in bulk, and help get it where it needs to go.

The greatest challenge will not be acquiring the heavily discounted food or donations to pay for it, but coordinating volunteers and staff to run the pantry at reasonably accessible hours.

“We haven’t needed to use the general fund to pay for the pop-up pantries, we had donations,” Schlabaugh said. “Whether it be through Rotary, whether it be through private donations, we had anonymous donations, we had kids come in and drop off money to help … once we provide the service, I think the money will take care of itself.”

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