Closing the Gap

Our guest this week is the one and only Darilyn Bedel, President of the Rush County Community Assistance Food Pantry, and amazing leader in our community! There's more than corn in Indiana, and that's on display for Rush County especially this time of year.

Transcript

Welcome to this edition of the Hoel Roofing & Remodeling Podcast. Today we have a special guest from the Rush County Food Pantry.

I’ll give you a second and just introduce yourself. And, we're going to kind of talk about the canned food drive coming up. Hopefully we can, you know, spark some interest and get some more canned foods for, just everything going on. All right. Well, I'm Darilyn Bedel, and I am the president of the Rush County Community Assistance Food Pantry.

I've been with the food pantry now for almost ten and a half years. So I left a, corporate job, retired from that, and I needed something to keep me busy. And this filled my niche, and I absolutely love it. So what? What was that corporate job? I mean, what did you do as a professional? Because that's always it's always fun to see, like when somebody transitions to a nonprofit role or I'm assuming it's considered a nonprofit role.

Okay, yeah. So I worked for Johnson and Johnson. Okay. And I was a forecasting analyst for them for 24.5 years. Well, wow. So yeah. So I'm all I know about the data. I love analyzing information. But there was always something inside of me that, I always wanted to do social service work. Yep. And but, you know, when you have a family to feed, you have to know where the money is and the insurance.

So, I mean, especially 35 years ago, I mean, I feel like fortunately now they're getting a little better at some of the nonprofits, hopefully getting some better benefits. But absolutely. But there wasn't any back then. So, you know, you take care your job. And luckily, Jay and Jay paid for my college education 100%. And I worked for them, and I loved what I did, but it was very stressful.

When the time come, I knew it was time to retire, so I called Mr. Mitchell. Yep. And says I need something to fill my time. And he says, oh, come on in. So he was actually my high school principal. He was my grade school principal. He was my preacher when I was a kid. So. Absolutely. So his wife was my second grade teacher.

Okay. So we had a good connection there. And so, you know, for two years I've just kind of sat there and kind of felt my way and tried to learn the ropes and everything. And then he decided he was going to step down. And he says, well, I want you to take over. Well, I had no idea how to run our food pantry.

We did running a business in Jacksonville, Florida. My husband and I did. Okay. When I started working with JNJ, we also owned a convenience store, so. And we had both worked at Kroger's before, so I felt like this was a natural fit. Yep, yep. And, my husband is very good at working at the pantry, too.

He was a grocery manager. So it was it was like we were coming home and knowing exactly what we needed to do. So instead of just running this food pantry is just a little food pantry. I more or less run that like a business. And I think that's why we have been so successful for the last ten and a half years where we have actually made some major improvements and, we get the respect now and people know about us, and we're just really happy the way things are going.

So, you guys are getting ready to move into the new building. The new community building. I believe that, that is, that's what they're calling it, right? Yeah. I mean, think so. Yeah. The love Community center. There you go. I'll never remember that again, but, kind of like, talk about what the benefits of that is.

What, you're excited, about that? Because I'll be honest, I don't think I've been inside the food pantry, the last couple of years. We've, helped with the canned good donations, but we just help unload it outside, and I don't think I've ever actually went inside back here where they store everything so. Well, it's very, very cramped.

Yeah, very, very cramped. We have very little room to work in. So moving from, a 1200 square foot building to a 3500 nice square foot area. That's like Christmas. Amazing. Oh, my God, it's so amazing. The space that we have. And we have been blessed by, a donor who has donated us new, refrigerator and freezer for the shopping area.

The glass door once and then we have received, he also bought us brand new walk in coolers and walk in freezer size brand new ones. And then he found out that I was on the Gleaners board, and he says, give her whatever she wants. So I just had to make out a list. And he has been able to fill that list for us.

So yeah. So the are we allowed to say who that is or does he want to stay anonymous? Oh he does, it's Mr. Edwards okay. Awesome. From any he is the CEO or the owner of Dean's Electric. Okay. Awesome. Thank you sir. Like, that's, That's awesome. It's amazing. And he, he's a big supporter of gleaners.

He just donated over $12 million to put in a new freezer and cooler and cleaners and also a new protein packing room. So he is all about giving back to the community where it's food insecurity. He is a big supporter of that. So my hat's off to him. I thank him dearly for believing in us, and I don't think if I have went to him ten years ago and asking for any of this, probably not.

But we have established yourself well in the food pantry community or the food bank community, and I think we're getting the respect and the recognition that everyone so deserves that the pantry, many families do. You guys, I don't want to say support. I don't know how you were that, but I mean, how many families do you serve?

I guess a week or a month? Well, that double the number has, since Covid, it's increased over 50%. So now we're up to, about 450 to close to 500 families a month. Wow. Which is a lot for this community. Well. What? So one thing that we, we were, like I said, we've done the last couple of years, there's the Christmas online.

That's coming up. There's the canned food drive. The last couple of years, last year, my daughter Reagan was in it the year before. No, no, it was last year. Reagan was the year before Port Reagan. That was at night. It was like negative three degrees, I think, poor girl was was crying without even wanting to cry.

It was so cold outside. But, and, so what it is, is a contest. Local businesses can support somebody. This year we're going to support Liam Hulls back. Jonathan, our production manager, team member for us a little over a year now, him and his, Jonathan and Crystal's, oldest boy. You know, he's running for Prince on Main.

So how do you win? That is the most canned, the most weight collected by boy gets the prince. Girl gets the princess. So, how many do you know how many participants you have for this year's competition? Okay, okay. We have seven girls and three boys. Is that, is ten? I mean, what's the average that you guys usually have?

That's about average. I think one year we had close to 25. Wow. Well, what do you guys have a goal of, like how much you try to you would like to collect during this time? You guys kind of, ruined us, I guess rudeness or, challenged us. So we liked, at least, like in 50 when you guys are participating, we take in 15 to 25,000 pounds of food.

And it's like, yes, that will hold us over at the first quarter of next year. Okay. Whatever we received in the canned goods, that means we don't have to spend a dime on came. Good. Nice, nice on that. And so it's like, yeah, you guys have really raised that bar now. And if I don't get that much each year, I'm gonna be so heartbroken.

That's why I was so excited when I saw your truck pulling in front of the food pantry is like store. Well, and it's, I mean, like me and my wife, it goes back to we're huge Dave Ramsey followers. And, you know, some people want to, like, beat up on Dave that all he says is, you know, live frugally and, you know, but like, really his, his whole philosophy is live like no one else.

So later you can live and give like no one else. And just like I mean, I'm going to brag on my kids because they're my kids and I'm really damn proud of them. But, I said, hey, guys, we're going to support Liam this year, which my youngest son, Riley, was a little disappointed, like she wanted to be Princess.

I told her, well, next year she can run, but like, my kids like each pledge money. Riley pledge 40, Reagan pledge 22. I have no idea where 22 came from. And pledge 100. And it's so fun right now because they don't grass cut money as there's like, you know, I mean, there's that saying that even a dog understands an open hand, like, yeah, you can clench your fist and keep all the money you have right now, but you can't get any more in that hand if it's clenched either.

So that's kind of for me that that was fun, that the kids were like, we're going to donate some of our money, go buy some cans. And like, my kids love going to go buy the cans. Like it's ridiculous. Like literally like as soon as we launched it last weekend or in the last week, like, we went twice already.

Like, I mean, they're like dad or. And this the other night, you're like, dad, are we going to get more canned goods tonight? And I'm like, no. I was like, we got other stuff to do. But like, I mean, if you see my kids, somewhere and we have a couple cart carts full of, I mean, like, the looks you get, like, I even had a lady, right?

Kind of half mad at me. Like, is there a reason why you're buying this? Like, yeah, we're donating it to the food pantry. Like, it's not like we've got, I don't know, 25 bucks of ice cream in here. But anyway. So, What? So how much food do you guys give out in a year, then? Oh, well, I can tell you what our, food budget is.

We spend 50 to $60,000 a year, okay? On canned goods and non perishable items. That's what we purchase. And that's what the families will come in and shop off the shelf. Okay. But if you look at what we, we are called a Adap agency for gleaners. And that's a direct agency pickup okay. So that means we go to Aldi's, we go to Kroger's, we go to Walmart and we pick up perishable items like the bread, the the deli items, anything that would not produce anything that normally would have gone into the dumpster.

Now we're picking it up and we dispense that or distribute that on the days that were open. So I just ran the numbers on that. And this year alone, and you probably are not going to believe me when I tell you this, but we have rescued over 125,000 pounds of food from the dumpster, so I can't really give you the number that we spent.

But I know what we spend on food every year and all that food that we collect at these, retail establishments. That's what's given out. Right? So you have to take that in consideration to how much that we're giving out. I think probably when the family leaves a food pantry, they are walking out with 75 to 100 pounds of food every time they leave.

We have unlimited produce, all that produce supply to us through Gleaners at no cost. And it's not second grade. It produce. It's good. Produce it. I mean, some of it looks better than some of the products you would buy at some of the retail stores. So when you see me put something on Facebook that says we have a lot of extra stuff, please come and get it.

It's not extra stuff that we purchase. It's the perishable items that we get from the Walmarts, the Kroger's and the all these because we can't keep that. Right? Right. So it either it has to go out that door or it goes in the dumpster. Well, we don't bury them. We put anything in the dumpsters. And so most of that all goes out to our families and it's high end stuff.

I mean, we're getting stuff from, we do pick up from Midwest Food Bank and we're getting soups like from Panera. And some of these high end restaurants that they can't do anything with it. So they'll only that we pick it up and we bring it home and we're able to give it to our families, which things that they probably never would be able to afford.

Right. Things that I can't hardly afford. We're able to give them out to them. So this is not coming as a mean, conservative, right wing, crazy guy. As that we record this the day after the presidential election. But what do we have any way that we're trying to help these families? Because once again, kind of going back to like the Dave Ramsey stuff, like, you know, when I say this, like my dad was a single dad, my dad had to get help, assistance.

However, once again, I'm not trying to come across as a *whistles* here.

30 years ago, they were a lot less apt to ask for the handout. There was more of an embarrassment. There was more of a I'm on a this a short turn, I'm on a provide for myself. Then I feel like sometimes now we're you're getting repeat offenders. I guess. So I don't know whatever. Is there anything there. Because honestly, I've had a few people that somebody connected me through and I try to give them like a Dave Ramsey budget book.

And I, I don't yeah, I, I don't know if I really need to read this, like, I'll just keep asking for help, and I understand we can't control that completely, but I just didn't know. Is there any other resources, that we do as a community or anything like that? We do? Well, first of all, I'd comment on that.

We, there is less than 6% of the families that come into the food pantry are habitual users. Okay, okay, okay. Most of them come in just when they need that. Awesome, awesome. And then what? Like, we also are tracking, now, is anyone in your household employed? Okay, okay, so we want to capture that, because, there's opportunities out there, right?

So and what we're finding a majority of our families are working, but they just can't make they can't close that gap. Oh, absolutely. And like I said, I don't want to come across as a guy that doesn't. You're not that doesn't want to help because I'm the one pushing our team to support and get food there, you know, kind of thing.

But yeah, that was just kind of a question. You know, because I know thing and I'm trying not to get on the political soapbox here may sound like I am. Like, sometimes I feel like we don't do the best. Like, I hate the minimum wage argument because I don't want, like, you should have enough skills that you should be able to.

I don't want to say demand higher pay, you know what I mean? Like, you should want more than that kind of thing. So that's that's my, you know, that's like I said, I'm not trying to come across as, like some mean old crusty, you know, business owner here. But, but I'm also like, I want this country to be a better place.

I want Rush County to be a better place, you know, like, and I and, you know, one thing that Dave Ramsey says is like, what would happen if as a country, we got to the point that we could out give the government and we could just get the hell away with the government. Like, and I mean, like knowing that Adam knows somebody needs help behind the camera here, so he's willing to go buy him food or whatever.

Like just I mean, there's just a different level of responsibility, you know, they are so well when they come in, and they ask for assistance, we get, you of course, we have another name, Rush County Community Assistance. So we get a lot of calls. Can you help me with my rent? Can you help me with my phone bill?

Can you help me with my electric bill? And I have to say no, because we are a food pantry. We're not set up to do these fundings. However, we are part. And I hope you're aware of it. It's called caring for Rush County. Okay. It was started back in 2018. I organized a group I actually above me because with our name, everyone was coming up and asking us for assistance, and I was spending half a day trying to find assistance for these people, and I didn't know where to go.

So I went and talked to the mayor and to Brian Sheehan and saying, you guys get things down here, this town. I want to organize and social services because we got to we're all working in individual silos and no one knows what everybody's doing. So I said, we'll call our meeting. I said, well, they don't even know who I am because I came back into this community after being gone for so many years.

And so I'm thinking, how am I going to do this? Well, dawned on me, if you feed them, they will come. Oh yeah. Yeah. So I went and talked to the director of Icap and I told him my idea and he like then goes, hey, I'll sponsor your lunches for a year. I was to get this going. So sure enough.

So now we have a, organized group of all the social services here in Ross County that we meet once a month. We share what's going on, and it's great because now I know I can call DCS and talk to Amanda Harris. She knows exactly who I am, and we have that face to face contact. It's easy to get help.

We also have a printout, Excel sheet. I want to tell you, with all of our social services listed at the hours of operation, contact names and numbers that we pass out to anyone needing those assistance that come into the food pantry, and we highlight the organizations they need to contact to help give them, the assistance that they need.

Another thing that we're doing at the food pantry, which will start when we move up there, I was told Adam about it is called a pantry to go. So what will happen is families that are working, that are working during our open hours will be able to go online, place their orders with the food pantry, and then go to a locker after hours and pick up their food.

We're hoping that with providing these families that are trying to make ends meet, we'll be able to use that money that normally they would spend on food to pay their electric bill, to pay their phone bills, to pay their rent, and hopefully, if God willing, that our numbers come down. Right. You know, most businesses want their numbers to rise.

We're completely opposite. We would love to see our numbers drop, because if we're not needed, then that's a good sign for the economy, right? Right. And it's a good sign for your community. Like that's what I want to play. You know, that's I read a book one time called toxic Charity, and it's several years ago, but it was pretty much like a out of country mission.

And literally they had six groups paint the same, walls in this building six different times in the same year, just to make them feel good. And I've been on a couple of mission trips, and it's really not about me feeling good. Like I think once you go serve somebody, you naturally feel good. However, that can't be your mindset of like, oh, I've got to get, you know, I've got to feel good after I do this kind of thing.

So yeah, I mean, that's, that's the kind of that, that gray line with, you know, with stuff like how do you manage it and not, you know, not not keep not upset people. Yeah. You know, it's a little difficult, you know, especially with new volunteers. Now we've got a really good volunteer, base now, they've all been there as long as I have.

Most of them have been. And. But we'll have a new volunteer and some will pull up in a new car. Right. And that's a whole for cars better than mine. I said, no, don't go there because they may be borrowing that car. Right, right. You don't know that. Yeah. So you just kind of have to enhance them because we don't know, the shoes that they're walking in, the path that they're taking.

Well, and sometimes, you know, you just got to give. And, you know, God's got to work on their heart about something, then that's between them and God and not necessarily like, yeah, you know, yeah. I mean, and, and I, I used to be part of a mission team at Plum Creek Christian Church, and part of that problem was are starting to be repeat offenders like they call Plum Creek this week, this month for electric.

Then they call this church. And then about every 6 or 7 months they'd be back out there asking for electric. And then once they started kind of chat and some, I was like, wait a second, we've been paying our electric bill too. And, you know, it wasn't just, you know, like I said, some people need help. I, you know, I totally get that.

So. All right, so do you guys do any other bigger fundraisers? Or, you know, like, this is our biggest night. Okay. This is our biggest month. Now we do a sell raffle tickets down at the amphitheater. Okay. And I just spoke to Adam. Maybe doing a disc, golf outing. Yep. So actually, we call it a disc golf outing, to help raise funds, but our volunteers are 60, 70, 80 years old.

They're past going door to door selling. Yeah, yeah, they don't want to fundraise. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's all they can do is they come to the pantry and they donate a lot of hours at that food pantry. So I'm going to ask them to do anything special like that. No. Right. But to do like this for instance on main know Prince and Princess.

That's something that we've done for years. And the board wants to continue doing that. Raffle tickets are easy. And if we can do a golf outing with the disc golf, it's something different for us. Yep. Yeah, those are things. But to do, like, money. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And sometimes I found out that it's easier just to write a letter and explaining what your mission is and what you've accomplished this month, and ask them to help continue to support your mission.

And I did that one year. And we found that over 20,000, right. Just by sending a letter and asking for help and but, but the food drive is our biggest one though. Awesome, awesome. So food drive has started as of today. And I believe this pie drop Friday here in a couple of days. So what is Fridays date?

They're the eighth. And so, the eighth, and then it ends. The 21st will deliver on the 21st. Okay. So collections need to be done by the 20th, roughly. Technically some on the 21st. We'll, take them in, but if you can. I mean, it's on their website or on their Facebook of, you know, the different people running.

We'll have here at Whole Roofing. And then I do know, I believe, I think I've seen somebody at Union Savings and Loan. I don't really know why that one's ringing a bell. Maybe it's citizens. I don't know this space. Okay, citizen. See? Well, it was Casey. I graduated Casey she used to work at in says loan.

Now she's a citizens and ideal citizens. So here I'm giving their own. Want to plug their Casey. I'm sorry, but anyways, there's plenty of businesses out there that donate two through somebody's, Reach out to one of us if you want to get some donations. And, you know, just kind of help give back to the community. Any any final words, anything you want to add their knowledge?

Well, anything I what I like most is when the parents let the kids go to the grocery store and shop for the food themselves, give the child the money and let them shop and you'll be surprised what those kids will pick up. And it's. And it's a learning experience for them. And it gives them a sense, giving you know, so but we always so appreciate you guys as support.

Like I said, I just it's amazing what you guys have done for us. Yeah, we've got past and I just cannot thank you enough. We've got an awesome team and and also like, just people from outside the community would be like, hey, here's 50 bucks. Go buy some more canned goods. You know, like friends of mine that don't even live in that state just because they see how involved, like, literally like our kids go and pick the food out and, like, put it in a cart and then they're trying to get it out of the back of the truck.

And it was so cute because little Riley's just it's just not quite tall enough to get it completely out of the cart, you know, and then having the older two in the back of the truck, like, stacking it up, like, you know, like I want to I want my kids to understand generosity and like, I want to raise them to be respectful.

And we want to complain about kids being horrible kids like it's the parents. Like, I hate to say it like it's a direct reflection of the parents, you know? And so it's just, you know, because I'll tell a story on my daughters. My son wanted to give money. My daughter's like, oh, I don't know. I was like, well, guess what, kids, your dad teaches you, you know, save, spend, invest, or save, save, spend and give.

And I was like, you're going to give something. And I said, I don't care what that is, but, you know, like give something because it like I said, it's the best thing you can do. So if we can help you guys, like anytime we can help you guys out, please let us know. We're going to continue to, to have, I've got another kid that's early in the contest and, and Jonathan, I'll have two more after that.

So and so yeah, we'll still be around for a few more years and, you know, like I said the other day, if we got to, you know, drop in a new starting quarterback for the team for the fundraiser, we'll do that. So, you guys, if you can help out the community or the food assistance, community food pantry, just go directly to them or reach out to us and we'll connect you guys.

So thank you for your time. Well thank you. Yep. Absolutely. Have a great day, guys. Thank you.