Grace Episcopal Church graciously giving a helping hand.
For over 30 years the Grace Church Food Pantry has been helping the in-need community of Downtown Madison. Housed in Grace Episcopal Church on the Capitol Square, the food pantry has its own budget, relies on federal and state funding and the compassionate support of volunteers and community donations to fill its shelves week after week. The Grace Church Food Pantry provides food, hygiene items (including baby diapers and wipes) and hope to more than 5,000 families a year. Over the past year, the number of souls in need have been on the rise, seeing more than 400 families a month come through the Church’s doors.
The Pantry’s Hours of Operation
The pantry hours are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1pm to 3pm and Saturdays from 10am to 12pm. Grace Church Food Pantry started a new program this year, offering classes for pantry guests designed to help them eat healthy and meet their nutritional needs out of the foods they receive from the pantry.
Meet Lorraine, the Coordinator of Grace Church Food Pantry
Lorraine Brathwraite is the Grace Church Food Pantry Coordinator, and was more than happy to work with Affiliated Dentists. She is a registered dietitian who became a member of the Grace Episcopal church in 2012 and volunteered at the food pantry. Shortly after joining the church, the previous director of the food pantry wanted to retire and asked Lorraine if she’d be willing to take on the challenges of running the food pantry. Aside from working at the food pantry window, Lorraine does all the coordinating with the government funding, the local business donations and the private donations. She spends quite a lot of her time on the phone and answering emails setting up deliveries and volunteer times. Lorraine has also started coordinating special events for families of the patrons of the food pantry. During the Thanksgiving season, the food pantry sponsored a special dinner for everyone to enjoy. On Saturday, December 14th, families are invited to celebrate the holidays with an afternoon of music, treats and goodie bags. Madison’s Off the Porch Bluegrass band will be present to entertain the masses. And Scoopie, the Culver’s Custard mascot will be there to deliver custard and tokens to guests. Lorraine hopes children will feel all the love and wonder of the holiday season at this event.
Some Grace Church Food Pantry Basics.
According to Lorraine, the flow of people each month is fairly steady. A lot of the same people come back on their preferred days to get the basic necessities. The food pantry is run very smoothly and efficiently. Several bags are packed ahead of time with the basics: cereal, canned veggies/fruit, mac and cheese and soap. Bags are packed depending on the size of the family– a bag for one person will still have the same basics in it as a bag for a family of 5, but the size of the cereal box is smaller, and there may only be one canned item and one box of mac and cheese. If the family has 5 people, the bag will have the “family size” box of cereal, 3 canned items and two boxes of mac and cheese. Once the initial bag is given out, then the person is asked if they want noodles or rice, what kind of deli tray they may want, what kind of milk and juice they want, if they want butter or hygiene items, coffee, sugar… the list goes on. Everyone who comes to the food pantry is both appreciative and pleasant, never making a fuss of what they get or how much they need. And sometimes people will work together. Maybe someone who was there last week comes back and only needs “x”. But the person in line behind them needs more of “y”. That first person will gracious accept then pass on “y” to the one who needs it more.
When FoodShare (food stamps) saw the budget drop this last year, the rise in food pantry patrons jumped, and remained quite high for a few months. Fortunately, according to Lorraine, the economic shift we’ve seen in the last year evened, eventually. Some of the old faces she had been seeing regularly were coming less and less often as they were finally starting to see improvements in their lives.
Building from History
The Grace Episcopal Church is one of the oldest churches in Madison, located at the corner of W. Washington Ave and N. Carroll St. The congregation’s roots go back to 1838, one year after settlement, with the first chapel being built on the site of the current courtyard in 1850. The foundation for this beautiful Gothic Revival church was laid in 1855 with much of the main portions being finished by 1858. This makes Grace Episcopal Church the oldest remaining building on the Capitol Square. In 1976 the church was added to the National Register of Historic Places. As one of the larger community sites on the square, it was so easy to open the doors for the community. Grace Episcopal Church is also a men’s shelter, offering 2 meals a day, showers, laundry facilities and a bed to sleep.
Affiliated Dentists Gives Back to Our Community.
Affiliated Dentists continuously looks for ways to serve and give back to the community of Madison. When word of the food pantry’s need reached Dr. Busby, he was excited to make up donation bags. Affiliated Dentists made up 40 “Blessing Bags” to hand out at the Grace Church Food Pantry on Wednesday, Dec. 11th.
What’s in the Blessing Bags?
The bags included toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, body soap, hot cocoa mix, applesauce, juice boxes, granola bars and Kind Bars (donated by Jenifer Busby) and polar fleece blankets. The reusable bags were donated by Home Depot of Madison West. Jenifer Busby, Dr. Busby’s daughter, works at Kind Healthy Snacks company and was eager to donate the health bars. Volunteering their time, Dr. John Busby, dental assistant Jullie Burkholder, her daughter Ellie and office coordinator Morgan Stevens were at Grace Church Food Pantry from 1pm to 3pm to hand out the bags, and other donations.
“We [the employees of Affiliated Dentists] wanted to support a charity that was local this winter season,” Dr. John Busby said. “Grace Church Food Pantry is a well established supporter of the community. With how big their guest base is we knew they could use all the donations they could get during this time of year. Erin, our office manager, reached out to Lorraine Brathwraite and I committed to a specific date to be present at the food pantry. We recognized it was just as important to physically volunteer our time as it was to donate food and hygiene items.”
“We are so very happy and blessed to have gotten such donations from Affiliated Dentists and Dr. Busby,” Lorraine said. “This time of year we can’t seem to keep our pantry stocked with enough of anything, so every little bit makes a great difference to the person who receives the items. And I believe the smiling faces of the lovely volunteers makes a person feel that much warmer on these cold days.”
Donations are an important part of any food pantry. And Grace Church Food Pantry is very fortunate to be in a city where so many businesses are able and willing to lend a helping hand.
Several local businesses regularly donate to the food pantry, including:
- Metcalfe’s Sentry Foods (donating deli items such as sandwiches, fruit, cheese, and ready-made foods)
- Woodman’s (donating food and hygiene items)
- Copps (donating food, hygiene items and bags)
- Sam’s Club (donating bulk food and hygiene items)
We at Affiliated Dentists are proud to support the Grace Church Food Pantry and encourage others to donate as they can. We were also fortunate enough to have gotten the eye of Channel 15 (NBC) news, who sent a camera crew to the food pantry. Hopefully this recognition of the food pantry’s good works will help them to acquire many more donations to keep the pantry stocked for the New Year! We also recognize the food pantry is not the only charity that may find use for some donations, and we welcome any other suggestions.