Staff photos/Brian Larsen
A masked Jim Wiinanen takes bread from the black trays and puts it on a table for the Tuesday, August 11 Ruby’s Pop-Up Pantry held at the large Cook County Highway Department garage. Because of the election, the pantry was held at the county garage and the distribution was held as a drive-through with food brought to the cars after volunteers found out how many shares the guests wanted.
A group of volunteers worked at a fast clip organizing paper products. According to Karen Halbersleben, Co-leader of Cook County Ruby’s Pantry, “We distributed 324 bundles of food, with over 60 pounds of food per share, thanks to the hard work of 61 community volunteers. Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, our monthly numbers have increased about 100-150 per month. Generous community support has allowed us to provide shares to everyone regardless of their ability to donate the requested $20 per bundle.”
A forklift driver unloaded pallet after pallet of food and supplies to different stations set up throughout the building. Excess food is donated to the food shelves in Grand Marais and Grand Portage, and to other groups in the community addressing food insecurity. Halbersleben said, “Ten percent of all the monies we collect at a Pantry stay in the community to support families in need, as well as programs like Snacks and Packs and the YMCA’s Snacks for Kids program. In the five plus years of our serving Cook County, we have distributed over 12,000 bundles of food!”
Ruby’s Pantry gathers various food overages, surpluses and bumper crops and distributes them into food bundles that are also called shares.
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