Dozens of families find help at Lodi pop-up food pantry

LODI — Volunteers braved high winds and pockets of snowfall Thursday to distribute food to dozens of families as part of a pop-up food pantry set up by Feeding Medina County and Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank. Distribution to more than 40 families took place at Hidden Hollow Camp, 8672 Richman Road in Lodi, with students from Cloverleaf High School rolling up their sleeves to help load supplies. "I wasn't going out of town for spring break so I thought why not put my time to good use like this," said 17-year-old Ashley Kizzen as she and friends huddled indoors to escape suddenly heavy snow. "This is my first time volunteering. I found out about signing up for it with National Honor Society. Why not spend your spring break helping others?" Thursday was the first time that Feeding Medina County and Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank have collaborated on a pop-up pantry but probably won't be the last, said Feeding Medina County Executive Director Katy Fuerst. Pantries will now be held from 4-6 p.m. on the first Thursday of every month at Hidden Hollow Camp, she said. "I see a lot of families come to us who feel like they don't deserve help," said Fuerst. "They may be a two-parent household where one person lost their job and the other is still working. They're not hitting federal poverty guidelines, per say, but there's still a need because their bills were all set at a place where both were working. A lot of people are very hesitant to reach out, thinking they don't have as big a need as someone else." "This pop-up pantry is a new thing we're doing," said Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank Programs Coordinator Cody Stanley. "We just started this year after getting a grant with a site in Portage County and one in Stark County. We're focusing on areas that have high rates of racial disparity. The plan with this is to operate at least once a month on a couple pantries and encourage more people to start one in their areas." Packages given to families Thursday averaged roughly 60 pounds each, consisting of items such as ground turkey, juice, canned vegetables and fruit, pastas, eggs, frozen berries, fresh greens and hams. While recent U.S. census data points to Medina County's poverty rate being at a 20-year-low, a United Way study showed that roughly one-third of residents were teetering on the brink of desperation even before the COVID-19 pandemic. The ALICE Report for Ohio is conducted by United For ALICE, a grassroots movement of 650 United Ways in 21 states, corporations, and foundations all using a uniform method to document financial hardship. ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed — categorizing households that earn more than the federal poverty rate but less than the basic cost of living for their particular area. Combining the number of ALICE and poverty-level households amounts to an area's total population that's struggling to afford monthly essentials such as rent, groceries, health care and utilities. Latest results represent a "snapshot" of economic conditions across Ohio in 2018. Over that period, the report shows Medina County having a 26 percent ALICE rate. That comes with a 6.8 percent poverty rate at the time, which according U.S. census data declined to 4.8 percent in 2019. "Last year, we served about 5,200 families just at our big distributions," Fuerst said. "Fifty-seven percent of the families who came to us in the months of April, May and June were new. They'd never been to a pantry before. Right now, we're still doing double what we would do normally at our distributions at the Medina County Fairgrounds." Eighteen-year-old Cloverleaf senior Justin George, a fellow National Honor Society member and first-time pantry volunteer, urged peers to pitch in if they also find the time. "You feel like a better person and you helped someone's day get a little better," he said. "You're out here in the cold instead of being inside a warm house sitting in a comfortable place. The feeling of doing something good out here keeps you warm, though." "Knowing you helped someone at the end of the day is a very rewarding feeling," said Kizzen. "Just coming together as a community to help others is so important. Right now it's really important." Thursday's pantry was also the first Feeding Medina County distribution event conducted in the area with the help of the Medina County Park District, said district planning operations manager Isaac Smith. "This is a great chance to utilize this facility to their benefit and get some eyeballs on what's going on here," said Smith. "If (Feeding Medina County) ever needs another location in the county, we would certainly look at that opportunity, as well. We have 18 parks so there's a lot of places that could benefit from this partnership." Contact reporter Jonathan Delozier at (330)721-4050 or jdelozier@medina-gazette.com.