The Lord’s Cupboard celebrates 40th anniversary

FAIRFIELD — The Lord’s Cupboard of Jefferson County is celebrating its 40th anniversary this month.

Susan Frey, the group’s executive director, said its board of directors is planning a public celebration for the spring on a date to be announced later. The Lord’s Cupboard is in the midst of its busiest week of the year, since it is distributing Christmas boxes every day of the week.

The boxes have everything to make a delicious holiday meal, with turkey given to large families, and chicken given to small families, to complement the fruits, vegetables, rice, cereal and meal helpers also included. Frey said the number of Christmas boxes the Lord’s Cupboard will give out this year has exploded to 500. The number was about 325 last year.

For most of its existence, The Lord’s Cupboard packed the Christmas meal boxes at the Nazarene Family Center, and invited the public to help. Since the pandemic started, it had to end that tradition, and now has a team of volunteers pack the boxes at its building at 303 N. Fourth St.

Packing Christmas boxes is a tradition as old as The Lord’s Cupboard itself. The Lord’s Cupboard opened its doors on Dec. 19, 1982, and within a few days had taken over the “Christmas giveaway” that the Neighborhood Center was previously in charge of.

Norma and Dick Bogner are members of The Lord’s Cupboard’s board of directors, and Norma has been with the organization since the very beginning.

“I was in a carload of women going to a women’s meeting at the Lutheran Church, and the pastor was telling us about how they were awakened in the middle of the night by a family going through Fairfield with no money, no gas, and several small children,” Norma recalled. “[The pastor] said he wished he could do something about this. I said we send a lot of money overseas for Lutheran World Relief, but there are people right here who need help.”

Norma said she was teaching part-time at that point, and knew that there were kids who came to school hungry on Monday mornings because they had eaten so poorly over the weekend. At that same time, a man in town named Tom Smith was recovering from an injury he sustained at work, and was looking for a way to spend his time by giving back to the community. He and a group of others put a notice in the newspaper to let the public know they wanted to start a food pantry.

“People from several churches came to these meetings. There was a lot of interest in this organization,” Norma said. “We didn’t know what we were doing, but the Lord was with us.”

The Lord’s Cupboard had humble beginnings. It began in a closet at the Nazarene Family Center, which was used as the food pantry. The Neighborhood Center gave this new organization the names of people to receive Christmas boxes, and that was The Lord’s Cupboard’s first act of community outreach. Norma recalls that they served 100 people that first Christmas.

“I never intended to get so wound up in it,” she said. “I was already busy enough, but there was a need. There were times when we doubted if we could keep going because of funding. When I look back, I wonder how we ever had the nerve to start it. It has grown way beyond my expectations.”

The Lord’s Cupboard has moved around a bit in its 40 years. After starting in the Nazarene Family Center, it moved to downtown Fairfield on Burlington Avenue, but outgrown that space and moved to an office on B Street. It outgrew that one, too, and moved into its current location on North Fourth Street.

Frey said The Lord’s Cupboard has not only grown in building space over the years, it’s also continuing to expand its services. About six months ago, it switched from being open three days a week to five, and extended its Wednesday hours from 1-5 p.m. It’s open 1-3:30 p.m. the other days of the week.

Frey is the only full-time employee. Everyone else at The Lord’s Cupboard is a volunteer. Frey said she relies on about 25 people who are either regular, weekly volunteers or volunteer substitutes. She and her team of volunteers serve 750 households a month.

The Lord’s Cupboard counts on donations from generous individuals and businesses in Fairfield. Hy-Vee donates bread and desserts. Everybody’s Whole Foods donates eggs and money that comes from its customers. Walmart donates meat, proteins, dairy goods and more.

“We even have a lot of spontaneous donations, too,” Frey said. “Just the other day, someone showed up with 900 pounds of donated food from Costco.”

The mission statement of The Lord’s Cupboard is “To fight hunger by supplying emergency food assistance to those in need.”

Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com