Cedar Rapids food pantry asking for donations in emergency fundraiser

CEDAR RAPIDS — A Cedar Rapids food pantry is asking for donations this week in a final effort to avoid closing its doors permanently.

Together We Achieve started in 2020 as a Facebook group — called Derecho Storm Resource Page — meant to help connect people to resources after the 2020 Derecho. It eventually grew into a food pantry in southwest Cedar Rapids.

On Wednesday, Together We Achieve put out a call for donations, explaining in a news release that without additional funding, the pantry will have to close by the end of this week.

The goal of the emergency fundraiser is to raise $50,000 by Aug. 31, enough money to see the nonprofit through the end of the year.

“We had written some grant applications that we were hopeful for. We felt that we had done what we need to do and shared the story that we needed to share, and that did not work out in the way that we had hoped,” said Raymond Siddell, executive director of Together We Achieve.

“I was holding out hope that we weren't going to be in this position, that with the grants that we had written and the corporate sponsorship asks that we had made, that there would be something that came of that,” he said.

  Buy Photo

Siddell said that several of the corporations and agencies that the pantry has previously relied on for donations have become overwhelmed in the last few years by the increasing requests from food pantries and other food-based organizations. In response, many groups have changed their funding priorities to focus on organizations that are working toward long-term solutions to food insecurity.

The pantry has written $127,000 worth of grant proposals in the last six months, but hasn’t gotten the response it was hoping to see, according to Siddell.

The nonprofit has faced decreasing revenue in recent years, according to its 2022 990 tax form. That year, Together We Achieve reported $102,982 in contributions and grants, down from $149,103 the prior year. And, despite cutting its expenses between 2021 and 2022, the nonprofit reported losses both years — $25,763 in 2021 and $55,067 in 2022.

Together We Achieve has received federal American Rescue Plan Act funds, from both Cedar Rapids and Linn County. In 2022, the program was awarded $23,980 from Linn County and $19,742 from Cedar Rapids to support its holiday food box giveaway. Also in 2022, Linn County allocated $3,650 in ARPA funds for Together We Achieve’s Hot Meals for All program.

“As we have seen an increase in need and more households that we’ve served … we’ve continued to try to serve every single day, and the systemic part of it, or the advocacy piece, that’s been a little bit more challenging when your need continues to increase, but the resources are tighter,” Siddell said.

“I would agree that systemically something needs to change and that we need to look at alternatives, but we can't cut out the food pantries at their knees, when the need is so high.”

Siddell said he recognizes that if the pantry can reach its $50,000 goal, that’s still only a short-term fix, but he hopes that money would give the nonprofit enough time to get together with other organizations in the city and begin creating a better system that puts less strain on individual organizations.

“If we could centralize this as far as ideas, systems, efficiencies, we would be more effective. We’d have a bigger impact, a wider impact, and I think we would have the impact that we need to start reducing some of those numbers, the numbers of individuals or households that are visiting pantries,” Siddell said.

Another area food pantry will close this week

If Together We Achieve is unable to raise funds, it will be one of two large food pantries closing at the end of August. Olivet Neighborhood Mission announced in July that it would be shutting its doors after Aug. 31.

Hawkeye Area Community Action Program, or HACAP, has purchased the Olivet Mission property and plans to turn it into a neighborhood resource center, which will include a food pantry, according to a news release from HACAP. Additional details about when the pantry will open have not been released.

Siddell said Together We Achieve has already started to see an increase in clients as people change pantries in anticipation of Olivet’s closure, and he’s worried about what will happen to those families if another pantry shuts down.

“We have a fragmented system. We have a lot of pantries that are open one day a month, or one day a week, or two hours a day, or just different schedules that work for their building, their volunteers, their staff. But there’s not one centralized or streamlined process to ensure that all hours are covered, or that all sides of town are covered at different times,” Siddell said.

Anonymous donor will match gifts

Siddell is hopeful that the community will step up to help keep the pantry open. An anonymous donor has already pledged to match every dollar raised in Together We Achieve’s emergency fundraiser, up to $25,000.

If the fundraiser isn’t able to reach the full $50,000 goal, whatever money is raised will still go toward keeping the pantry open for a bit longer, whether that be a few weeks or the rest of the year, according to Siddell.

“Our goal is to stay open and continue to serve the community, and if that means that we can stay open a little bit longer to share with them what this means and give them a little bit more time to prepare, we will certainly focus on that first,” he said.

In 2023, Together We Achieve served 7,370 people from 1,995 different households. In 2022, it served 6,192 people from 1,684 different households. Siddell said the increase in people turning to food pantries has been consistent in recent years due to inflation and other societal stressors, and he believes it will only continue to grow.

“Change needs to happen, but we can’t eliminate the food pantries during that process,” Siddell said.

Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com