By DAVID DUPONT
BG Independent News
The Brown Bag Food Project needs to move out of mom’s house.
The charity which provides emergency food and other essential items to those who find themselves in crisis has been storing its inventory in Peg Holland’s garage and spare room. Holland is the mother of Amy Jo Holland, the founder of the Brown Bag Food Project.
The project was founded last year. It received its tax deductible status in June, 2015. Amy Jo Holland created it when she learned that some fellow workers at the local Walmart didn’t have enough to eat. From that act grew a project that now feeds about 200 people a month.
The Brown Bag mission is to help people get over an emergency so they can seek more permanent help. They provide both non-perishable and fresh items as well as personal hygiene items and toiletries including diapers. Given that the calls can come at any time, Brown Bag has to have items on hand.
Right now that’s at Peg Holland’s house. The inventory is outgrowing the space, and the lack of a real home is also hindering the operation.
Amy Jo Holland said having a local space would allow them to purchase food from places like Northwest Ohio Food Bank at a much lower price than they can buy it retail.
With the winter much of what is in the garage would have to move indoors, and Peg Holland doesn’t know where she’d put it.
Peg Holland, who is on the project’s board, said they’ve been offered commercial shelves. Those shelves, her daughter said, would be great because they would allow volunteers to only handle the items once, instead of packing and unpacking them.
The project has also been offered another refrigerator, which is does not have room for.
There’s also an issue of safety and privacy for Peg Holland of having strangers whether picking up food or volunteers coming in and out of her home.
A new warehouse would give the project a place where people could come to pick up their packages. Now those donations have to be arranged, in sites like the Walmart parking lot. That can seem “a little sketchy,” Amy Jo Holland said.
Board members have looked at a few potential sites. Amy Jo Holland said they saw one of about 500 square feet and while that would meet the immediate needs, it wouldn’t do for the long run. Probably, she said, 1,000 square feet would be better. Ideal would a warehouse setting. Another food pantry operator advised looking at having large enough doors for when they start having to deal with pallets of food.
The board has started a Go Fund Me campaign to raise money to pay for the new home. Contributions can be made at gofundme.com/bbfpspace.
If the warehouse had a kitchen space, Amy Jo Holland said, that would be ideal, but not necessary.
The project is looking for a temporary kitchen that has a commercial license so it can produce its signature caramel apples, which it sells as a fundraiser.
The apples, which are sold at the Apple Butter Fest and through Grounds for Thought, are a major fundraiser for the charity. But a change in the state cottage food regulations means they can no longer be produced in her mother’s kitchen. The same holds true for the chocolate covered strawberries sold around Valentine’s Day.
The project would just need the kitchen for a few days, and it would need to be inspected to be approved for their use.
Despite the demands her daughter’s outreach has put on her, Peg Holland said, she’s proud of her. “She’s a very giving caring,” she said. “This grew out of people at Walmart who were in immediate need for food and it blossomed into this. Takes a big heart to be compassionate enough to care for other people. Not many people in their twenties could take on an endeavor like this.”
She saw this as early as first grade, when young Amy Jo reached to a classmate who was being ostracized by the other children.
Peg Holland said the need tapped by the Brown Bag Food Pantry is large. It’s not just Bowling Green, she said. It’s North Baltimore to Walbridge.
Amy Jo Holland said that 14.9 percent of Wood County’s residents suffer from “food insecurity.”
“There’s a whole lot of people we’re not reaching,” her mother said. “We’re just getting a sliver of the pie.”
The project can be reached at 419-960-5345 or visit: http://brownbagfoodproject.org/.
