June 2018 Regional Spotlight – Churubusco United Methodist Church

As you know, our mission is to alleviate hunger at Community Harvest Food Bank. But no mission can be done alone. In fact, Community Harvest works with about 400 nonprofit member agencies in nine counties throughout northeast Indiana. We are starting a regional spotlight to highlight agencies that do incredible work right in their communities – ending hunger, helping families, offering encouragement and support, and much more. Each of these agencies overcomes challenges and focuses on providing service to people in need close to home. Community members are helping community members, and their hard work ensures that fewer vulnerable members of the community go hungry.

For the month of June 2018, we would like to spotlight Churubusco United Methodist Church for their outstanding work to end hunger in Churubusco and Whitley County. We had the pleasure of meeting with Ronnie Morris, who has been with the pantry for 29 years. Each month on average, their pantry serves 260 families representing about 1,100 individuals. In total 13 people work in the pantry, including drivers and order pullers. They distribute about 2,500 pounds of food each week, with close to 2,000 pounds coming from Community Harvest.

“We run in the evenings and we also run on Saturdays,” said Ronnie. “A lot of pantries are open two hours a day, or one day a week and a lot of people from outside our community just can’t get to those areas so they call us up. That’s why we are so big, because we do so many of them. It’s amazing for just a small community like this.”

Ronnie is also lucky to work with a great team. “The volunteers with our church are just wonderful people. I get a lot of credit for the pantry, but it’s not me, I’ll guarantee you that. It’s the volunteers. They are the ones that deal with the people and the main thing is being friendly to people. You have to treat people with a lot of respect. All of our people are really, really good. They are 100% personality and that’s what you have to have. A lot of people I didn’t have too much communication with come to the pantry and in less than a month we are good friends. We know each other and it makes a world of difference. You get to know people a lot better, especially the volunteers and also the people who come in to get food.”

And how long does he intend to continue?

“As long as my health is good. You’ve got to have something you like to do – this pantry, volunteering at Community Harvest, and other places. I volunteered at Smith on Fourth Street for a while and the homeless shelter. We would take meals there occasionally, too. I am slowing down a little, not like I used to be. But I still love it. It’s not work. If it was work, I wouldn’t be doing it. This is enjoyable.”