'Blessing box' on Swigart Street will make food assistance available 24/7
Several community groups are working together to make emergency food assistance available to people round-the-clock.
The county's first "blessing box" — a small, outdoor cupboard stocked with nonperishable food items — will become available later this month, said Paula Brown, associate director of the Crawford-Marion Alcohol, Drug Addiction and Mental Health Board.
"This is open 24/7 for anyone," she said. "A lot of times people that work cannot come to social service agencies during open hours. Maybe somebody doesn't even realize they're out of something and they need it real quick. Or there's still a stigma attached to going and getting help, and maybe they don't meet the income criteria for social services. So this is available for anyone."
Planners are now seeking sponsors for the project.
The Eliminators Car Club built the box
Members of The Eliminators Car Club erected the box along Swigart Street, in the west lawn of the BORN (Bucyrus Outreach and Restoration Network) office at 222 E. Rensselaer St. on Saturday. The box will be stocked after a ribbon-cutting at 1 p.m. April 25.
"We had a discussion about the folks in our county who were going to be impacted by the stopping of the extra SNAP food stamps that they had, the homelessness we have in our county, the folks with substance abuse disorders who don't always have food for themselves or their family, and we just started talking about what we could do," said Mary Jo Carle of Together We Hurt, Together We Heal.
"All of us had seen different people with different needs and it's like, how can we help?" added Tabetha Linn, BORN's executive director.
Brown had seen blessing boxes in other communities around the state.
"So every time I went somewhere on vacation or somewhere, I was snapping pictures of these boxes. And then when we got our heads together, we're like, why don't we do that for our community?" she said. "We started meeting about a year ago — looking at the pictures, planning what it would look like, where it should go. Being here we thought would be logical since BORN is right here, it's right off the alley, it's in a convenient location, it's not too far out of the way. Kids could walk here on the way home from school."
Carle said she volunteered her husband and his car club, The Eliminators, to build the actual cupboard.
Bob Carle explained the club started with an antique cabinet he purchased online. "That was cheaper and easier than starting from scratch," he said. With a roof added, the cabinet was mounted on posts by members Saturday.
People will be welcome to leave food items in the box — the idea behind a blessing box is to take what you need, leave what you can, Brown said.
Sponsors sought for one-month periods
Churches, community groups and civic organizations are being asked to consider sponsoring the blessing box for a one-month period, according to Brown.
"We're asking our community, partners and agencies if they would take a month each out of the year and be responsible for the box — donating food, making sure that there's supplies in the box," Mary Jo Carle said. When it needs to be replenished, the BORN staff will restock it. "We're hopefully going to be able to tabulate what folks are using so that we can give a report out to our partners saying, 'This is working. This is how much food people had this month.'"
Anyone interested in sponsoring a month can contact BORN at 419-562-2150.
Donations for the box have already started to come in, Linn said. BORN has a closet and a room upstairs dedicated to storing blessing box items.
While the box will be used primarily for food items, some toiletries may be offered, too — but not advertising or pamphlets, Brown stressed. In the summer, a table for fresh produce may be added.
"It's just free: You can come any time," Brown said.
ggoble@gannett.com
419-559-7263
This article originally appeared on Bucyrus Telegraph-Forum: Planners seek groups to sponsor food assistance 'blessing box'
