Most of us have never known true hunger. But to some local families, it’s an all too familiar feeling and
a constant fear.
The shelves at the Bowling Green Christian Food Pantry have been stocked for decades by generous donors
who have soup and Spaghettios to spare.
But hungry families need more than bread, pasta and milk. They need someone to step up and provide a
place for the pantry – soon.
For the past 11 years, the food pantry has been housed in the bottom floor of the old county health
department building on West Wooster Street. The price is right, with no rent charged. But the location
is far from ideal, with no handicapped accessibility, steps leading down into the pantry, inadequate
space for food storage and no room for an office. The pantry is cramped, with families having to wait
outside as others pick up food.
The pantry feeds 85 families each month, helping to fill the stomachs of an average 225 people, according
to Shirley Woessner, a food pantry board member and volunteer coordinator for the site. Those families
are allowed to come back for more every three months.
The Bowling Green area community has done well filling the shelves at the pantry with staples like peanut
butter, green beans and fruit cocktail. But we have fallen short when it comes to providing an
acceptable location for a service that meets the basic need of filling empty stomachs of our neighbors
who are less fortunate.
The pantry organizers believed they had a solution last year when plans started to come together for the
construction of a pantry site on First Christian Church property. That plan fell through when legal
questions arose about the future of the site if the pantry ever disbanded.
When explaining the change in plans, Steve Riewaldt from the church said the congregation believed in the
pantry’s mission, but also recognized the need for others to support the efforts.
"This should be a city-wide event, all the churches should be involved and major businesses,
too," he said to our reporter. "Hunger is a universal problem. It should be everyone’s
concern."
So the food pantry organizers shifted gears, and started searching for another solution as they continued
to feed the hungry from their existing site.
Then a couple weeks ago, the group suffered another setback when the current pantry landlord told them
the facility must move out by July 1. Bob Maurer, owner of the property, notified Woessner that
renovations were being planned to the building on West Wooster Street.
On Woessner’s phone answering machine, Maurer left a message stating that he was not pleased with the
negative publicity at the pantry site during heavy rains this spring. Woessner had called a TV station
about high water outside the pantry door which required people to walk on palettes to enter the
building.
But Maurer told our reporter he would give pantry organizers time to find another location.
"They do a good job. We’re not going to evict them, but the time has come for them to find a new
home," he said.
So now is the time for someone to step up. A group of churches and businesses, as mentioned by Riewaldt.
Or a landlord with a vacant site, as Maurer did for more than a decade.
Like most communities, Bowling Green has several empty storefronts or commercial sites that might be
suitable, and perhaps affordable if the task was approached as a community-wide issue.
We need to go beyond donating food and find a place to put it, and welcome our less fortunate neighbors
in need.