OSHKOSH, Wis. — Austin Wenker makes his food choices carefully, spending time looking at the options in the freezer cases and shelves at the Oshkosh Area Community Pantry in Oshkosh.
He’s the owner of Tempo Music Studio and Art Gallery in Oshkosh.
“It’s bridging the gap, quite honestly,” Wenker said. “Our business has a lot of things we’re moving forward with that I want to achieve. In the meantime, you have to make sure you’re taking care of your needs. This place has always been here as needed to make sure I’m accommodated and that I don’t have to worry about my nutritional costs.”
Wenker said he uses the pantry at least two times a month. He’s seen the number of people shopping there increasing.
“They’re helping out pretty much everybody who might just need a little help in a time of need, a little slump to they just can’t cover all their needs for their family,” Wenker said about the pantry and its largely volunteer staff.
“Especially larger families with a lot of children. They’re always accommodating here,” he said.
The Oshkosh Area Community Pantry saw a 93% increase in the number of new families it helped last year.
Director Ryan Rasmussen said the pantry distributed more than 2 million pounds of food last year. It’s helping about 2,300 families a month.
“We all know the cost of everything has gone up. We also experienced a rollback of FoodShare benefits,” he said. “Folks who were used to getting about $250 worth of FoodShare benefits, that got rolled back to pre-pandemic levels. Now, it’s anywhere from $10 to $20. Because of a couple of those reasons, we saw this massive influx of guests being able to utilize our services.”
The pantry saw a 93% increase in new families last year, as well as 115% increase in people using the Kids Corner section.
Things aren’t slowing in the new year.
“We are still seeing the amount of folks coming to utilize the services have remained consistent from the ending of 2023,” Rasmussen said. “Already in 2024, we’ve seen another 2,200 families that have come through. We’ve seen that trend still happen. The new registrants, just for the month of January, we had another 70 registrants who came in. The theme is still the same.”
Wenker said the pantry fills an important need in Oshkosh.
“I hope more people in any kind of need will come check it out,” he said. “It can adapt to your lifestyle and meet the things you need at any point in time.”