The little red pantry outside Port Huron cafe Kate’s Downtown, a resource community members who need help can use anonymously, will move to Yale after misuse and bad behavior.
In a Facebook post Thursday, café owner Kate Voss said the community has been so incredibly generous and kind in keeping the pantry filled with food for those in need.
“Sadly, in the last six months, we’ve still experienced good, but now the bad has taken over our Little Red Pantry,” she said.
This "bad" and misuse included:
- Staff having to clean the pantry multiple times a week after people “made poor decisions.”
- People opening all the canned goods and sometimes pouring them out in the pantry.
- Adding soiled clothing to the pantry.
- People making lewd/inappropriate comments to the young and mostly female staff while using it.
- People using it as a urinal.
“You see the problem I’m sure,” Voss said in the post.
In an email, Voss said maintaining the pantry before the past six months was challenging at times but mostly good..
But in the past six months, it changed.
“The last few months what changed (besides everything) was people were falling on even greater hardships,” Voss said. "We were seeing more activity but from unfamiliar faces ... The last six months a handful of new people were taking the pantry in a different direction and it was not being used as it was intended to be ..."
Lisa Seelmann, president of Woman's Life Chapter 803, which builds the pantries and helps stock them, said the pantry outside Kate’s Downtown will be moved to the First Presbyterian Church of Yale by the end of the week.
The first pantry was implemented in 2017 and since has grown to 12 locations.
She said the purpose of the pantries is to have something available that's anonymous for people having trouble making ends meet. It’s not meant to be like grocery shopping or a long-term situation.
Some pantries have trouble keeping stocked and the food will be gone within a day, and kids have dumped macaroni and cheese out into one, but none of them have had issues like the Kate’s Downtown pantry.
Seelmann thinks this might be due to Kate’s location in downtown by bars and St. Clair County Community College.
It is unfortunate because café customers kept the pantry full and Voss would put leftover bread and other food from the day in it, Seelmann said.
Seelmann said she thinks it’s still worth having the little red pantries. There are always going to be people who take advantage of the pantry, whether they “shop” there or vandalize it. But that’s not the majority.
They’ve just got to keep moving forward and helping each other, Seelmann said.
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Voss said the community was “awesome” and people were always going out of their way to fill the pantry. Café staff also became friends with the regular pantry users.
Voss said she's disappointed that morality and decency didn’t override selfish and inconsiderate behavior of some individuals that ruined this resource behind the cafe.
“We would have continued to clean up messes, pick up trash, etc. but it went well beyond that,” she said. “You can’t clean up an individual's behavior. That is something only they can do. Maybe next time they show up & see the pantry missing it might ring a little bell in their conscience as to maybe why it’s gone ..."
People interested in stocking a pantry or who might need a little help can find little red pantries at the following locations:
- G. Lynn Campbell Library at 1955 Allen Road in Kimball
- BCM Media Blasting at 8468 Wildcat Road in Jeddo
- First Congregational Church UCC of St. Clair at 300 Adams St. In St. Clair
- Sturges Memorial Congregational Church at 2729 Ravenswood Road in Port Huron
- Port Huron First United Methodist Church at 828 Lapeer Ave. in Port Huron
- First Congregational Church United Church of Christ at 275 Bancroft St. in Imlay City
- St Clair County Community Mental Health at 135 Broadway St. in Marine City
- Zion Community Church at 14952 Imlay City Road in Capac
- St. John's Church at 710 Pine St. in Port Huron
- St Clair County Library at 210 McMorran Blvd. in Port Huron
- St Clair County Community Mental Health at 3111 Electric Ave. in Port Huron
- First Presbyterian Church of Yale at 3 E. Mechanic St. in Yale
Contact Bryce Airgood at (810) 989-6202 or bairgood@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @bairgood123.
The Link LonkAugust 04, 2020 at 12:02AM
https://www.thetimesherald.com/story/news/2020/08/03/little-red-pantry-moves-kates-downtown/5556616002/
Suspect behavior prompts Kate's Downtown little red pantry in Port Huron to move - The Times Herald
https://news.google.com/search?q=little&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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