Colfax Community Cares food pantry needs donations and a fund-raising coordinator

By LeAnn R. Ralph

COLFAX —  The Colfax Community Cares monthly food distribution program needs your help.

Colfax has three food pantries: the Caring Ministries emergency food pantry; the Support for Sunday backpack program that provides food for the weekend for children up to fourth grade; and the Colfax Community Cares monthly-distribution food pantry.

The Colfax Community Cares food distribution pantry is in need of financial donations, said Rev. Craig Conklin, pastor at Colfax United Methodist and Tainter United Methodist.

Colfax Community Cares is held once a month on the fourth Tuesday of each month at the former Area Nursing Home on High Street in Colfax.

Community Cares serves between 45 and 60 families in need each month, accounting for over 100 individuals, Pastor Conklin said.

The program has been in place since June of 2015.

About half of the clients are senior citizens, and the other half are age 56 and younger and include both adults and children, he noted.

Colfax Community Cares obtains food through the Feed My People food bank in Eau Claire.

“We spend about $250 a month. Generally perishables, such as vegetables and bread, are free,” Pastor Conklin said.

With Feed My People, “there is always free or for very reduced cost. Lately we’ve been able to get a lot of eggs … it’s all helpful,” he said.

Any non-perishable items left over can be saved for the next month, Pastor Conklin noted.

Volunteers

Colfax Community Cares has more than a dozen people who volunteer their time to unload the truck, stock the food and help distribute it on the fourth Tuesday.

“They do a wonderful job. The volunteers are very dedicated. My main job is to take the figures and get the report back,” Pastor Conklin said.

Geri and Ernie Bates are particularly instrumental in coordinating the Colfax Community Cares food pantry.

“Geri does the ordering of the food. Her goal is when you start at this end of the line, by the time you go out the door, you’ve got at least one full meal, between the perishables and the canned and the pasta products. Someone could at least have one full meal,” Pastor Conklin said.

“She does a very good job of looking through the pages on the order sheets and finding what is reasonably priced or what’s available. Produce is the hard thing. We don’t know what’s available until the Friday before, or sometimes not until the Monday before,” he said.

Home-grown garden produce also is welcome.

“Last year, some people brought produce (from their gardens), and we set it there for people to take,” Pastor Conklin said.

One of the items donated last year was squash.

“The senior citizens really appreciated that. The younger families were not so enthusiastic, but the seniors really liked the squash,” he said.

Colfax Community Cares is set up “so it is not embarrassing for people. When they come, we ask for their ZIP code, the number of people in the family and the ages. But we have a range of ages, so they don’t even have to tell us their exact age,” Pastor Conklin said.

Fund-raising coordinator

In addition to needing monetary donations to help fund the Colfax Community Cares monthly food distribution, the program also needs a fund-raising coordinator.

“I have noticed we are very good at distributing, but we are not very good at fund-raising,” Pastor Conklin said.

“We need to start working on fund raising … when we first started, we had one person who did fund raising but has now since moved. And we’ve never picked it up. It’s something we need to address,” he said.

The Colfax Ministerium made a donation to help the food distribution program continue for now, and the ladies’ group at Colfax Lutheran also made a contribution, Pastor Conklin said.

But on-going fund-raising efforts are critical to Colfax Community Cares.

“Anyone who likes to do fund raising or has ideas for fund raisers, that would be a wonderful volunteer to add to the group,” Pastor Conklin said.

If someone were willing to take on coordinating the fund-raising efforts, Pastor Conklin says he is certain there would be plenty of volunteers willing to help with running the fund raisers.

If any groups or clubs in the Colfax area would like to hold fund raisers for Colfax Community Cares, that also would be greatly appreciated, he said.

While Pastor Conklin and Geri and Ernie Bates are the coordinators for the three food pantry programs in Colfax, the food pantries are result of a joint effort of all of the churches in the area, he noted.

Donations

Anyone wishing to make a financial donation to Colfax Community Cares can contact Pastor Conklin at Colfax United Methodist at 715-962-4335. Geri Bates can be reached at 715-962-3386.

People can also write a check to Feed My People and send it to 2610 Alpine Road, Eau Claire WI, 54703. Feed My People can be reached at 715-835-9415.

If you send a direct contribution to Feed My People, be sure to indicate your donation is for Colfax Community Cares.

“Feed My People is generally very good about letting us know who donates. Geri or someone else will send a thank you,” Pastor Conklin said.