Loyal Food Pantry to host open house

As the community comes together to celebrate Loyal during Corn Fest, volunteers at the Loyal Food Pantry also plan to provide an opportunity to showcase what the community’s support made possible. They will host an open house at the pantry, 132 N. Main St., Loyal, on Saturday, Aug. 23, from 8 a.m. to noon, as a means of thanking the community for its support in helping the pantry bounce back after the Main Street fire nearly a year ago.

No food will be distributed during the open house, but community members will have the opportunity to look around and ask questions.

“We hope to give people an idea of what we do here, and just thank everyone for supporting us,” said Tom Kingsbury, food pantry volunteer.

The Loyal Food Pantry is open three days a week and serves around 210 households a month, an increase from before the fire, when it was averaging about 160 households a month. The pantry serves all of central Wisconsin, not just Loyal. Considering how wide a reach the facility has, the Sept. 12, 2024, fire that destroyed the food pantry building had the potential to be extremely devastating for a lot of families. But community members stepped up to ensure the need would not go unmet.

Please see Loyal Food Pantry, page 7 “A lot of people made things happen real fast,” said Kingsbury.

By the morning after the fire, Kingsbury already had a plan for a building. Various community members donated food to replenish what was lost and cash to replace equipment. The food pantry volunteers knew a food shipment would be coming the week after the fire and needed a place to store perishable items. A community member donated the use of his refrigerated trailer to make that happen. The food pantry ended up using the trailer for a month and never saw a bill.

The push to get the food pantry up and running again was an all-around effort, not only from Loyal but all of central Wisconsin and even beyond. To give just a few examples: The Neillsville FFA went trick-or-treating for the food pantry. Church groups in Marshfield donated; so did Land O’Lakes in Spencer. Tech. ed. classes at Loyal built tables. A local citizen donated furniture. Abby Bank and other local banks contributed. RZ Builders used their forklift free of charge to move the freezers. Kingsbury’s brother-in-law from out of state did the wiring for the freezers and built the shelving.

“People were phenomenally good. The outpouring of public support was incredible,” said volunteer Bob Meyer.

Ultimately, the food pantry only missed three distribution days, quickly becoming operational again at its site just down the street from its original location.

The food pantry volunteers say they haven’t been able to thank everyone, because many people donated to the Loyal Fire Fund anonymously. So this upcoming event is the volunteers’ way of saying “thank you” and offering appreciation on behalf of those the food pantry serves.

“A lot of people have contributed to it, but haven’t gotten to see it. So this is a chance for them to do that,” said Meyer.

The Loyal Food Pantry can be reached at 715-503-1071.