By McKenna Dirks, Community Reporter
Nancy Renkes is in her eighth month as executive director of Eau Claire’s Feed My People food bank and is coming into the new year with vision.
“I came from a food bank in Davenport, IA,” Renkes said in a recent interview via Zoom. “I worked there for about five years. I always knew I wanted to be in a leadership role and help run my own food bank, so when the Eau Claire position opened up, it sort of was the perfect match for me.”
Renkes said when she arrived at Feed My People, the best part was finding a strong board that had worked previously with a strong and strategic leader. She said her predecessor, Emily Moore, did a great job setting up the food bank for the next director.
What food banks can do
For 35 years, Feed My People has provided hunger relief across west central Wisconsin, producing around 7 million pounds of food for over 70,000 people in 2019.
Renkes said her previous food bank in Iowa was serving 23 counties and provided around 22 million meals for people during her last year there. She said this previous experience enabled her to see, before the pandemic, what food banks can do to ensure everyone has access to the food they need.
“It really gave me great experience to come to Feed My People because they were absolutely ready and poised to do the same thing,” Renkes said.
Suzanne Becker, the assistant director of Feed My People for eight years, said she is fortunate to have worked with two wonderful directors. Both Moore and Renkes are visionaries, she said.
Becker said vision is critical right now, both to navigate COVID-19 and what it means right now, and to keep an eye on the bigger picture when the pandemic ends. She said she is lucky to have learned and partnered with both directors.
Currently, Feed My People is serving 14 counties in west central Wisconsin— with bigger plans in sight.
Renkes said long-term, Feed My People wants to make sure everybody in those 14 counties has enough food to live a happy and healthy life. She said short-term, the food bank’s goal is to provide as much food as it can, as safely as possible, to people in need.
With COVID-19 still prominent in the area, Renkes said keeping people safe is the food bank’s number one concern right now.
Empty Bowls fund-raiser plans
Despite COVID-19’s restrictions, Feed My People has found a way to make one fundraiser happen this year: Empty Bowls, which will take place Mar. 1-6, along with an online silent auction.
Becker said although the food bank is unable to have people gather for the fundraiser this year, it has a plan for the event to still go on: people will be able to buy tickets and receive a gift bag.
“In the gift bag, they will get a handcrafted bowl, and we’ve created booklets that include coupons from a lot of our food donors from the past,” Becker said.
Some of those donors are struggling for business because of the pandemic, so the food bank is hoping the coupons will drive business their way, she said.
Last year, Becker said, Feed My People was fortunate enough to put on the Empty Bowls fundraiser before the pandemic affected large gatherings.
She said at the time, there was no awareness that large gatherings weren’t a good idea and the food bank had almost 3,000 people attend the fundraiser. She said if the event had been scheduled two weeks later, it would have been cancelled.
“We are cautiously excited,” Becker said in regard to plans for this year’s event.
Find more about the 2021 Empty Bowls fundraiser at the Feed My People website here.
Pandemic has increased the needs
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Feed My People has seen a 35 percent increase in need in the counties being served, Renkes said.
“We expect that to continue even after the vaccine is rolled out,” she said. “There are people that aren’t going to go back to work and there are people that are so far behind on their bills, they will continue to need our service.”
She said their team knows about 40 percent of the increase consists of people who never had this kind of problem pre-COVID.
“We say it takes three things to feed people: food, time and money,” Renkes said. “We, at Feed My People, are really blessed. We have so many volunteers that do work to help our employees get their work done— from driving our trucks to packing food. But the pandemic has really limited our ability to utilize volunteers.”
Renkes said the food bank’s building is restricted, like most businesses during this time. She said its employees are split into teams so if someone contracted COVID-19 on one team, there would still be another team in the building to help operate and keep things moving.
Food bank’s partners
Feed My People has nearly 200 food pantry partners and meal sites to help with the meal distribution, Becker said. It works with shelters, like Sojourner House and others throughout the 14 counties, as well as beginning to work with the medical community to find new food distribution channels, she said.
Those new channels are aimed at providing appropriate food for low income individuals with health conditions, like diabetes and high blood pressure, she said.
Renkes also said the pandemic is limiting the ability to rescue food from places like grocery stores because the back rooms aren’t safe to go in. However, she said Feed My People has been overwhelmed with donations, which has helped expand its distribution.
To adapt to the pandemic conditions, Renkes said Feed My People is putting pre-packed boxes in the trunks of cars to distribute food safely. She said the downside of this is the inability to ask the recipients how they’re doing.
“When the pandemic hit, we didn’t have time to figure it out, we just had to do it,” Becker said. “Our partners have done such a wonderful job, they dug in and figured it out.”
Note: The home page photo shows Nancy Renkes, who became Feed My People’s executive director last June, at the food bank. (Photo courtesy of Feed My People)
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