West Madison food pantry expands to Monona church as food insecurity grows statewide | Food & Recipes

By Lynn Sommers Last updated Jan 26, 2023

A growing need for the bare necessities is leading a local food pantry to expand its services.

MADISON, Wis. — With food costs rising, food pantries across the state have been seeing demand similar to pandemic levels. It’s caused one west Madison pantry to team up with and expand to a Monona church to support the community there.

Casa de Fe Pastor Pedro Ruiz enthusiastically greeted community members in the church parking lot Wednesday evening.

“This is our grand opening so that’s why we’re excited that we’re able to do this,” he said.

The pantry began at 4:30, but a line of cars arrived 30 minutes early — turning that excitement a little bittersweet.

“(I’m) happy because we are able to help those people that are lining up, and people are already lining up,” Ruiz said, “but on the other hand, thinking we need to do more as a community, and we want to put a little grain of sand within the community.”

His church teamed up with Extended Hands Food Pantry to bring some relief to Monona and east Madison Wednesday. Families drove up to Casa De Fe to receive bags of grocery essentials like meat, grains, beans, rice, produce, cleaning supplies and more.

“When you see the bag it’s a good sized portion for a family,” Ruiz said.

It was donated by Extended Hands Food Pantry and Second Harvest Foodbank. “Today we brought 2,000 pounds,” Todd Schwartz, Extended Hands’ manager, said.

Extended Hands operates out of Lighthouse Church on Madison’s west side, but they decided to expand because they’re seeing food insecurity grow city-wide.

“We’ve doubled since late last year,” Schwartz said. “So we were regularly doing 60 families at Lighthouse, and then once the new year rolled around we’re at 90 to 100.”

Pastor Ruiz has heard from more of his congregants how hard paying for food has become. That’s coupled with aid services screeching to a halt; Little John’s Kitchens suspended meal services this week and Wisconsin Emergency Rental Assistance ends this month for most of the state.

RELATED: Little John’s suspending operations amid search for new space, additional funding

“Prices are going up, not only stuff are closing like you mentioned,” Ruiz said. “Every single food item, stuff is almost doubled, so when you’ve got a family of two or three, this is a situation of, ‘Do we eat today, or do we starve for the day because we don’t have enough to make ends meet?'”

“To get food to their tables sometimes they have to have two to three jobs to make ends meet,” he said.

According to Ruiz, Casa de Fe plans to have the pantry on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month from 4:30p pm to5:30 pm Families can sign up ahead of time or drive up the day of.

The pastor said no one will be turned away.

“You don’t need to be Hispanic, you don’t need (to be) a churchgoer, you don’t need to be part of our congregation,” Ruiz said, “as long as you’re in need, we’ re here for you.”