106. 'Tabitha's Way Food Pantry' and Helping People Through Tough Times by Providing Temporary Food Assistance (with Founder and Executive Director Wendy Osborne)

Food pantries and food banks across the United States are seeing record levels of demand right now for so many reasons — if you’ve ever felt that tug to volunteer, donate, or somehow get involved, now truly is the time.

That’s why I’m resharing this meaningful episode that originally aired in February 2024 featuring 'Tabitha’s Way Food Pantry' and its Founder and Executive Director, Wendy Osborne. Wendy has spent years leading efforts to help families in need, and in our conversation she gives a thoughtful look into how food pantries operate, what food insecurity can really look like, and how strong communities make strong food pantries.

This episode feels especially important right now — food insecurity is a solvable problem, and every one of us can play a part in helping ensure no neighbor goes hungry.

Links mentioned in episode:

Tabitha's Way Food Pantry Website

Tabitha's Way Food Pantry Instagram

Tabitha's Way Food Pantry Facebook

Follow the podcast on social media:

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Transcript

elissa: Food pantries and food banks all over the United States are seeing huge increases in demand right now for a variety of reasons. If you have ever felt pulled to volunteer or donate in any way, now is the time. That is why I am resharing this episode that Originally aired in February 2024 featuring Tabitha's way food pantry and its founder and executive director, Wendy Osborne. Wendy does a great job of explaining the logistics of how food pantries function and gives the reminder that it's the strong communities our food banks and food pantries are in who help them meet the needs of so many. I believe this is an important topic and episode to share at this time to encourage anyone who's listening to volunteer or donate in any way you can for this issue of Food Insecurity. Welcome to the Do Something More podcast.

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Melissa: Welcome to another episode of the podcast and I'm looking forward to this conversation because we are talking today to Wendy Osborne. She's the executive director and founder of Tabitha's Way, a local food pantry in Utah County. And I have for a long time admired a lot of the good work that they do. So I just feel honored that Wendy was willing to come on the podcast and share with us about the good things that Tabitha's Way is doing. So, Wendy, welcome to the show.

Wendy: Oh, Melissa, thank you so much. And the honor is all mine. I just. I love every opportunity that we have to share about Tabitha's Way and what we're doing and. And just to speak about the. The cause that we are working towards. And so thank you so much for the invitation.

Melissa: Yes, most definitely. Well, let's start off, Wendy, just. Why don't you give a little introduction of yourself and then you can go into just a quick introduction also of Tabitha's Way.

Wendy: Okay, well, so a little bit about myself. See, so I started here in Spanish Fork, my family, I raised my three sons here and happily married for 36 years and have lived in Utah for about 37. So a little bit of a transplant. But I love. I love this community and I. I love this place. So Tabitha's Way. It's Tabitha's Way local food pantry. Tabitha's Way currently has three locations. One in Spanish Fork. Yeah, I know, it's kind of crazy to think about. So one in Spanish Fork, one in American Fork, and also one that we just a satellite pantry that we just opened up in Saratoga Springs. So our Saratoga Springs location was opened up in November of this year, and the. The American Fork was opened up with my partners Al Switzer and Mike Carter. Carter, who are the co founders for the American Fork pantry location. So. And they helped with these. Basically started the. The Saratoga location as well.

Melissa: That's great. Well, food insecurity is not something that I think is a new topic or concept for a lot of people. But what was the personal driving force for you to start the pantry and do what you did?

Wendy: It's kind of a funny story. I actually was in telecommunications, and I love my career in telecommunications. It was a lot of fun, but I kind of got to the spot in my life where I was on a spiritual journey and really trying to live a life that wasn't. Was no longer just about me and, you know, connecting with God and connecting with other people. And the name Tabitha's Way comes from a woman in the Bible. And so in the Bible, in the Book of Acts, chapter 9, verse 36 through 42 is a story of a woman named Tabitha. And she provided food and clothing for people in her community. And I was praying and meditating on this scripture when God basically just, you know, said, hey, I want you, Wendy, I want you to leave your career in telecommunications and start a food pantry. And voila, here we are, you know, nearly almost 14 years now later. So in 2010, June of 2010.

Melissa: And there's a lot of logistics, I'm sure, with coordinating all of these local pantries and fulfilling the need for so many in the county. So what are some of the logistics? How do you coordinate? How have you managed the growth? Where do you get the food that you donate to others from? How does that all work?

Wendy: Just in a nutshell, Such a great question. So I'm going to start with the food because the food maybe help really explain some of the logistics. We have a program that's called our grocery Rescue program, where a large portion or actually most of our fresh foods come from our grocery rescue program. So we go out to and partner with local grocery stores, you know, Costco, Walmart, Smith's, and also small grocery stores, Stokes just all of these good Earth food stores and also some restaurants, Olive Garden, Chick Fil A, all participate in storing their excess food or their surplus foods. And we have Grocery. We have trucks, refrigerated trucks that go out and pick up food from the local grocery stores. And again, that's where food donations come from. A lot of people don't realize, for example, we cannot take, like if you were to buy a gallon of milk and bring it to our pantry, we can actually receive milk or items that require temperature control from the general public. We have to get it from either a food producer or a food reseller or wholesaler. So fresh foods come from our grocery rescue program. A lot of these shelf stable food donations come from the public. So a lot of schools do food drives, church organizations do food drives. Businesses and civic organizations will hold food drive. And we're also always open to receive. Maybe you've. I had a gentleman come in one day. This is kind of a funny story, but a gentleman came in one day and he had like 20 boxes of, of cereal. And I said, wow, thank you for this donation of cereal. And I was curious as to why I had 20 boxes of the same kind of cereal. And I guess he was, he was a couponer and he would, you know, use coupons and buy food. And he brought home, he was so proud of his purchase. He brought home all of these boxes of cereal and lo and behold, none of his kids would eat that cereal. So we got these, these beautiful boxes of food donations from him. And so, so food donations from the pupp. So that's kind of where our food comes from. Logistic wise. Again, we have those three pantry locations where people can come to our food pantries. They are full time, full size food pantries that offer a variety of food to anyone in need in our community that is struggling with food insecurity. And so, yeah, so our trucks are out picking up food drives and food donations from stores through a grocery rescue program and from like manufacturers, we've had food manufacturers or suppliers that are here, Cisco Foods, there's some, several different organizations, maybe they're a healthy food organization and they have a surplus of food and they'll call us and say we've got, you know, a few pallets of food. Would you like to come pick them up? Like, absolutely, we'll come pick them up. So, so we have trucks that you'll see out on i15, you know, on the city roads as well, driving around picking up food. So really it's about getting the food that's out there, the surplus that's out there, and then get to our food pantry and then into our food pantry and distributed out to the families that are coming into our pantries.

Melissa: Wow. That is a huge operation. Just like any grocery store would be running or any other organization.

Wendy: Yeah, yeah, lots. So it really does take a village, and we're so grateful and blessed by those donations. You know, really, in the United States, we don't have a lack of food. We have actually a surplus of food. But it's a matter of getting that surplus of food to our facilities and out to the families that need it, which is largely what food pantries do we look like. If you were to come into our. Into our food pantries and our warehouses, we. We would look like a food warehouse and like a. Like a grocery store when you walk in. So very much like a grocery store.

Melissa: And.

Melissa: Yeah.

Melissa: Serving that need of kind of filling in the dots of getting the surplus food to those that use it.

Wendy: Yeah, exactly.

Melissa: Yeah. So I would love to know that you've given us a little insight about that direction of things to go now the other way around. To someone that is needing assistance wanting to come into the pantry, what is their experience? Like, what can they expect through that experience?

Wendy: Anyone who needs assistance, we recommend if they can first go to our website, which is tabithasway.org and click on the need help or get help tab. And it'll first help kind of identify what pantry's closest to you. And then from there, once we know which pantry is closest to you, because we don't want to waste resources like gas getting to the right place, it also tells you what our hours of operation is. And you can make a reservation or just come in, make an appointment or come in and depending on the pantry location you're going to, and then come in. And the first time when they come in, we have them meet with a. An intake specialist or an intake volunteer that kind of helps them create a pantry account and kind of explains process of getting food. And then we'll walk them through. We'll have a volunteer shopping assistant come in and help them just kind of shop through and show them, you know, how to utilize the pantry services and what services are there. So, for example, helping them understand that we also provide. If you have a baby or an infant in diapers, we have baby formula, we have baby diapers, we have hygiene and supplies that are available also for the adults and the individuals living in the home. And so helping them access those resources, or maybe they need clothing or maybe they need recommending, you know, a resource to another organization. Maybe somebody's having an issue with medical needs, or maybe they've lost their job and they're looking for a new job, we can actually offer resources to them to point them towards, you know, self reliance or helping them get back on their feet. So whether that's, you know, pointing them to Community Health Connect, if they're having a health issue, or to a doctor or physician that could best help them or whatever resources out there, because we, we're very fortunate. In Utah county, there's many, many organizations, whether that's a nonprofit or a government entity or, you know, a state agency that offers resources. There' lot of great businesses out there. And so, for example, we had a gentleman come into our food pantry and he was a truck driver by trade and he was involved in an accident that had a fatality and he could no longer, you know, he could no longer drive truck. And so he was getting workers compensation pay, but that was only 65% of his pay. And so you've got a shortfall if you're living paycheck to paycheck, you need those additional funds. And so he came into our food pantry because he was having trouble providing food for his family because of this particular situation. And we pointed him to another agency that works in particular in helping individuals identify new career paths. And so he went to that organization and within three months he was off and running with a new career and didn't need our food pantry services anymore. So similar stories where maybe somebody comes in and they've, we've had a family come in and they were dealing with medical bills and a medical issue, an ongoing medical issue. So we're able to refer them to Community Health Connect and they were able to help find a resource that was actually able to provide some of the prescription medical needs that they had and was helping then was able to help them just get out of food insecurity much faster. So yeah, so that's the other service that we offer besides food is those recommendations to resources.

Melissa: So yeah, that's been kind of a.

Melissa: Theme on the podcast recently with the collaboration that goes on between different nonprofits that you each can focus on the strengths that you have and offer those services and then continue to refer and help others find the specific needs they.

Melissa: Might need that you don't fulfill.

Wendy: So absolutely, absolutely. Nonprofits love to network and love to leverage the resources. I might not specialize in healthcare or specialize in helping somebody find a new job, but there's another agency that does that. So we specialize in making sure providing the food and then pointing them to the resource that will help them best.

Melissa: And with those stories you told, I noticed as I was reading your website that it pointed out many times those experiencing food insecurities. It's temporary assistance you're giving, but there's always the need for a local food pantry because those needs know no boundaries. You might never know when someone, whatever circumstances might come that they'll find themselves in need of those services.

Wendy: Yeah. So our mission statement is helping individuals and families through tough times by providing temporary food assistance, recommending resources for self reliance and then neighbors helping neighbors. So what is a tough time? And a tough time is back surgery. It's cancer, it's divorce, it might be your car broke down and you don't have the means to pay for the car repairs and food. So there's a lot of, of circumstances. And I always tell people, till there's no more tough times, until everybody drives Teslas and their cars don't break down, we're all in happy marriages, independently wealthy, we've cured cancer, all manner of illness and disease. We will need a food pantry because it's those tough times that are really the drivers behind the food insecurity. And so, you know, communities will need a persistent solution for resolving food insecurity. We very much are revolving door. It is temporary. Since our average client, you know, 75% of our clients come between three and five times, which is less than three months. So it's really just, oh, I need a little bit of help and I'm often on my way. You know, I had a gentleman come in, he was a single father and he came and he said, wendy, I've got a new job, it's a great job. I'm actually going to be able to save money. I've been living paycheck to paycheck. However he goes, I've got a tweak lag in my paycheck. And so I've got kids at home I need to feed. Can you help me out for just two weeks? And I'm like, absolutely. And so he came in once, got two weeks worth of food and just was off and running. And so, and we love to see, we see many of those situations. You know, I was looking at our numbers the other day and there's a large portion of the clients that we serve that just come once and so they just need a little bit of help. Something happened, they need food for two weeks and then they're off and running. And so, and the majority of the clients we serve are children, 50% or more are children. So these are families in our neighborhood who maybe just have a little blip on their screen. Of something that happened. They need a little bit of food for them and their children and then they're good. So.

Melissa: And honestly, all of us will have a blip at some time. And so great to know that there's friends and neighbors and resources out there to help us, whatever that need may be.

Wendy: Yes, that's exactly it. You know, it's just those blips is, or those, I mean, nobody puts it cancer in their budget. We don't do that. We don't put in, oh, our radiator is going to go out in our car. That's not a thing. And some of us do have rainy day funds, but most don't. It's very uncommon in us for a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck and don't have emergency savings. And so that's really what where a food pantry steps in and helps.

Melissa: Right. Have you seen with the inflation in food prices the last few years, has that affected your services and the need that you've seen?

Wendy: It has, it has, tremendously. So we've seen a lot of families coming in. I was looking at our numbers for this past year and the year prior with all of our, combined with all of our food pantry locations, we served a little over 96,000 individuals. Last year we served over 150,000 individuals. Oh, wow. Inflation is playing a big role in that. However, population growth is the biggest driver and you're seeing a large number of refugees coming in to our pantries at this time. And so those three factors, inflation is, you know, they're saying that inflation is cooling, but I don't see prices dropping. And so I don't know if you've gone to the grocery store recently. You spend a hundred dollars and you walk out with a bag and a half, two if you're lucky, and you're like, where did my money go? Everybody experiencing that pinch. And so, so that's still been a situation. We're actually seeing more low or medium. Not, sorry, not low, but medium to high income households or you know, households that weren't struggling before, I guess not high, but medium, medium range households that were not struggling before now coming in and saying, I need a little bit of help. And so it's just because we're not able to stretch our dollars, our buying power has diminished and we're not able to stretch our dollars as far as we used to anymore. And so that's, that's the thing. And then population growth, you know, Utah county is exploding population. One of the reasons we put a new A pantry or a satellite pantry in Saratoga was. That area is just growing so fast that the. It's. The infrastructure can't keep up with how fast it's growing. And so population is a huge driver. And we know that that's not going to stop anytime soon. So.

Melissa: And as a nonprofit and organization, how do you handle that extra demand and growth? How. What are some of your ways you go about?

Wendy: Well, first off, a lot of prayers. It's interesting to watch, you know, what our organization was 10 years ago, what it was even five or six years ago, what it was two years ago, is vastly different than what we are today. So we are always pivoting, we're always changing. We're always looking for new ways to increase our food donations, new ways to get more businesses and foundations, funders involved in our organization and to help us. Going out and talking to our community leaders and letting them know what challenges we're facing. We're also networking with more and more nonprofit agencies and entities and finding ways, you know, Utah Diaper bank, wic, just Utah Food bank, all of these different organizations, and working with them to find ways to really leverage the resources that are available to expand capacity. But a lot of it is, you know, fundraising too. We. I spend a large amount of my time when I'm not doing administrative duties. It's fundraising activities, activities driven towards raising the necessary resources financially for organization to grow. We're currently in the process of doing a capital campaign, two capital campaign projects. One for the American Fork location, which actually is a new building in Pleasant Grove, and then one in Spanish Fork as well. And so our buildings that we currently have no longer fit the number of clients that we're serving and the amount of food that we need to collect to fit to serve these families. And so here we are, we're needing larger buildings, but we believe that these new buildings will help meet the need for the next. We hope for the next 10, 20 years as our community grows. Because looking at the population growth, it's. It's going to be.

Melissa: It's going to be stopping anytime soon.

Wendy: Yes, absolutely. So.

Melissa: Well, I want to go back to. You mentioned your mission statement, and I love that third one there you mentioned of helping neighbors help neighbors is part of what you do. Can you just go into that a little more and what that means for your organization and why that's part of your mission statement?

Wendy: Absolutely. Well, about eight years ago, we rebranded Tabitha's Way to Tabitha's Way Local Food Pantry. And there was a reason that we had done that. We realized that again, tying it back to food insecurity and the drivers, the tough times that happen because we know our communities will always have a tough time. We know that we will always need to have. Need to have a food pantry. And for a food pantry to thrive and to fight food insecurity, you need a robust, stable food pantry in a community. And so we recognize that we really need the help and support of the community for a food pantry to exist on a consistent and long term basis. So a persistent solution requires persistent support. And so that's where we recognize we really need the support of the community for this to be accomplished. And the truth is communities want and can be involved and want to own this. They want to see that there's families in their community that have the resources that they need. And so we recognize that there was. We needed to really rebrand our name and really state that our mission statement because it does require the assistance of the community. It really does take a village. Our volunteer ratio is probably 20, 25 to 1 for every staff member. We have that many volunteers. We need organizations and neighborhoods and individuals and businesses donating food, donating supp. Donating money to our organization to make this all work. And so we recognize that and that's why we put that in our mission statement was to really make this effort a community effort and to involve the community. Tabitha's Way is that we are a community supported food pantry and we love it and we love how our communities have wrapped their arms around our organization and, and are here to help. I mean they're. Everything when you walk into Thomas's Way has been donated. All the people that are there, most of them are. I mean, like I said, we have, it's a 1 to 25 or 1 to 20 person ratio, depending on the day. But you know, for every one employee, we've got 25 volunteers that are in there helping serve our clients or sorting food or serving on a committee and helping our organization do what it needs to do to scale and grow and serve the people in our community.

Melissa: And I think as you said, most of us, that is something we care about is making sure that families and children don't go hungry. And it's great to have opportunities to know how, where to put those desires to help with that. So for those that are local, how do you use all the volunteers and how can they sign up to help with your organization along with with giving food donations as well?

Melissa: Obviously.

Wendy: Great question. So in both circumstances you could go to our website. So on our website, Tabitha's way.org you can click how to help and there's information on how to sign up to volunteer depending on the pantry that's closest to you. There's also information on how you can give food and how you can, you can schedule a food drive or what our food drive drop off hours are or what types of food we need is all listed on our website. Of course, if you're, if you're not somebody who's techie and don't want to go to our website, you're welcome to give us a call and we can direct you and get, send you information on what's needed. But we, we love it when people call and say, hey, I want to volunteer, I'm looking for a project. And I always tell people we are a party of projects. There's, there's no, I mean, we have volunteer opportunities for, in our pantry, we have volunteers opportunities for projects outside of our pantry. We have projects for businesses and large groups and business small groups or even individuals if it's, we've got a rainbow variety of all kinds of things. And so, so in both circumstances you can, our website's probably the greatest resource to, to find information. But also, you know, we invite people to just call, give us a call at 801-709-8573 and we can direct you to the pantry that's closest to you and the person that can best help you out. So we're or, or stop by. We love people to walk in and say, hey, what's going on here? And we say this is what's happening. So, so we love, we love people to come in and visit anytime.

Melissa: That's great. You'll use anyone that's willing.

Wendy: Yes.

Melissa: So we also have a lot of listeners that are from all over. So I would love, with your expertise and experience and the years you've spent doing this, what encouragement would you give to just anyone listening that has a desire to help with food insecurities in their community like you, like you did, that just all started from your thoughts and desires. What advice or encouragement would you give to them or ways that they can get involved in that way?

Wendy: Well, first off, I would say that I believe personally of all of the complex issues and problems that our society is facing today. And there's a lot of complex issues. Homelessness, addiction recovery, mental health, all kinds of things. Food insecurity is an issue, a issue we can resolve. It's an issue we can tackle and we can resolve it by having persistent food pantries in our community and So I believe it's a solvable problem. One, I want to state that. And two, I would say food insecurity exists all across America in every neighborhood. And so I would invite people to get involved by first researching what resources are available in your community. Is there an organization that currently exists that's fighting food insecurity? Go learn about that organization. I love boots on the ground. I love it when people want to know about our organization and they come in and want to, you know, be the boots on the ground, because then then they really see it doesn't take much for convincing on my part because they see what the need is when they come to our pantry and they see what we're doing firsthand. So. And all nonprofits love that. All good nonprofits love for you to come in. They want to invite you in to see what they're doing. And so go see what they're doing if there is organizations that exist. And then secondly, look at the needs in the community. Is there areas, pockets in your community that are not being served or that are underserved? And if there is not a resource that's available in your community that's addressing it, well, then maybe consider that you might be the one to help address that need. And then just there's a lot of information that you can find online. The Urban Institute is a great research resource that you can find all about ways to tackle food insecurity, how to address food insecurity. And so, but great resources out there, but definitely one, see what resources you have in your community so that you're not duplicating services and help if you can in those areas. And then two, if there's an underserver or an area that's not being served, then help find ways to serve that particular area area if you feel compelled to do so.

Melissa: That's great advice and I love that you bring up that this is a solvable problem, that there are ways for us to address this issue in real time right now.

Wendy: Yes, absolutely.

Melissa: Well, Wendy, thank you so much for this conversation today. I've loved learning more about Tabitha's Way local food pantry and also hearing some of this good advice and perspective that you had to share. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Any final words or thoughts you'd like to share?

Wendy: Melissa, I would just like to say thank you to you. It's organizations like yours and your podcasts that help those do gooders do more good. And so nonprofits don't have marketing budgets. And we're as you can tell we're very passionate about the causes that we serve. And so thank you for the blessing and honor and the opportunity to be here and for not only for myself and our organization, but for the many organizations that you're helping get the word out about the work that they're doing. So just thank you so much for that. It's wonderful.

Melissa: Well, thank you. And yes, that is one of my missions. I recognize that nonprofits don't have those resources and I love helping with that in any way I can. So thank you so much and for all the good that you do.

Wendy: Likewise. God bless. Have a great day.

Melissa: That concludes my interview with Wendy Osborne, the founder and executive director of Tabitha's Way Food Pantry. And I really appreciated that reminder she gave that food insecurity is a solvable problem. It will take our individuals, organizations, all of us working together in our communities to help solve that problem. That is doable and it can be done. I will leave links to Tabitha's Way Food Pantry, their website, their social media if you want to get involved with them or donate to the many things that they are doing. I would also encourage you, if you are not local to me, to look up and find your own local food pantries or food banks. Find a way that you can donate and get involved.

Melissa: And I would also like to give.

Melissa: The friendly reminder that if this episode helped encourage you or you learned something from it, please forward it on to a friend or someone else that you think would benefit from the information that was shared here today. And also I will always take your five star ratings or good reviews on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to this podcast. That helps me get the podcast out to others who are looking for this kind of inspiring content and ways to give back to their own communities. And of course, I want to leave the reminder that this week I hope that you find a way to do, do something more to help lift, inspire or make a difference.