GRACE volunteer Reagan Isbell recently completed her Girl Scout project – a Little Free Pantry.
Reagan is currently a junior at Grapevine High School and has volunteered at GRACE since 2006, helping in our Food Pantry, Clothing Room, and Feed Our Kids. As a fun fact, you may have seen Reagan in a photo with her family on the side of our trucks driving around town!
The Little Free Pantry is located outside the GRACE main office at 610 Shady Brook in Grapevine and it is a simple way to help our neighbors in a big way. Applying the Little Free Library concept, it activates community engagement of food insecurity. The project is a grassroots, crowd sourced solution to immediate and local need. Whether a need for food or a need to give, the Little Free Pantry facilitates neighbors helping neighbors, building community.
The project was initially thought out in June 2017 by Reagan as a Little Free Library, but after discussion with GRACE staff it was determined that the pantry would serve a greater need within our community.
Coincidentally, the summer of 2017 Reagan went on a Mission Trip with First Methodist Grapevine to Tonkawa, Oklahoma, and she happened to see the project in action while on that trip. She has been working on it ever since and it has now become a reality.
If you would like to get involved, please feel free to drop off your donations directly at the Little Pantry! If it is full – which we hope it will be – come again! In addition, we are looking for individuals or groups to volunteer to adopt the project and commit to checking on it maybe once or twice a month on a schedule – at your convenience!
Items for the Little Pantry should be non-perishable, preferably single-serve, easy to open and self-contained items. Good examples of this are fruit cups, protein bars, single packets of tuna, cans that have openers included – you name it!
This project has earned Reagan the Gold Award which represents the highest and most prestigious award in Girl Scouts. As a result of Reagan’s initiative, others have been inspired to replicate the project, so you will see more GRACE little pantries popping up soon!
If you are interested in contributing on a regular basis or would like to do your own Little Free Pantry Project, please contact Lara Hohweiler.
