After Faith Lutheran Church in Brookfield closed in 2022, congregants decided to sell the building and donate the proceeds to open a food pantry as a last act of faith.
Share Food Share Love Brookfield is trying to live that faith out by transforming the pantry into a free market in an attempt to treat their neighbors with dignity.
The food pantry feeds about 400 families a month and has 450 volunteers this year.
John Dumas, co-founder of the pantry, was part of the former church his whole life and held many positions, including council member and mission director. He said the idea for the food pantry came from the desire to continue the legacy of the church to help their neighbors.
“Food is such a basic need, it’s something that we have to have, obviously, and if you can’t feed the people what else could be accomplished?” Dumas said. “As Christians the belief being that Jesus instructed us to care for one another and to see to the well-being of one another.”
John Barnett, the marketing director of the pantry, said he got involved a year ago and has a background in industrial brand marketing.
He said the pantry treats people who come there as neighbors rather than as customers. When creating the pantry’s brand identity, he said they asked themselves “what kind of experience do we want our neighbor to have?” That conversation drove them to treat those who use the store as neighbors.
“The word client comes sets up this dynamic where there’s the person in need and the person providing solutions,” Barnett said. “If we have a neighbor in the waiting room, we want them to feel like they’re a neighbor, not that they’re a client, not that they’re a patient, not that they’ve done something wrong.”
In that vein, they also decided to stray away from preparing a traditional box of pre-selected food, and instead plan to transform the pantry into a free market where people can select what they need and want.
Barnett said they did a survey last fall and the overwhelming feedback showed people preferred that option. It also eliminates food waste because some people would not use all products if they did not need them, he said.
The market plans to offer more than just groceries; it plans also to offer solutions. Share Food Share Love market intends to have a multilingual advisory center that will refer people to the right resources for help with utilities, job search and other social services. They are still selecting the organizations they want to work with and are being very selective with the candidates, Dumas said.
The market is scheduled to open during the first half of the year, likely early February, but the advisory center is set to open later.
