Food Insecurity

UUCC community members collectively help stock a little free pantry and vegetable & fruit bin right outside the main entrance to our Owen Brown Interfaith Center. If you need something, take something. And if you can donate, please do. The pantry is open 24/7 for Owen Brown and Howard County community members, and is always in need of our donations.

Get Involved

Bring Food Donations to the Little Free Pantry

Our Free Little Pantry and produce bin are in consistent/constant need of our donations, and all of us are invited to bring our donations with us to Sunday service each week. Or another time, when you are visiting the Owen Brown Interfaith Center.

Items can be placed directly into the Free Little Pantry (pictured below), or in the red wagon inside the Interfaith Commons on the first floor of the Owen Brown Interfaith Center. Items you can donate directly to the pantry (or red wagon) at any time include —

Free Little Pantry located outside the lower-level entrance of the Owen Brown Interfaith Center

🍫 Breakfast bars
🍍 Canned fruit, fruit cups
🍝 Canned ravioli, pasta, etc.
🫛 Canned vegetables
🍫 Granola bars
🧃 Juice boxes
🧀 Mac and cheese
🍘 Packs crackers and cheese
🥜 Peanut butter (plastic containers only)
🥛 Shelf-stable milk
🍲 Soups (pop top preferred)
🫧 Toiletries
🐟 Tuna or canned meats (pop-top preferred)

Set-up a Recurring Donation

Did you know you could set up an ongoing donation to UUCC’s food insecurity effort? Sign-up and the donation can happen every week, month, every 3 months — whatever works for you. It’s a good way to remember that you want to ease food insecurity in our community.

👉 Donate online via our Realm database. Select FOOD INSECURITY from the dropdown FUND menu.

100% of your donation will go toward purchasing food.

set-up recurring donation

About UUCC’s Food Insecurity Team

UUCC has a history of providing food for those in need, either donating food to the Howard County Food Bank, making meals for the Grassroots Day Resource Center, or making sandwiches for Manna House. The food insecurity ministry was formalized in 2017 under the direction of former Director of Religious Education Robin Slaw who initiated the Little Free Pantry which was built by UUCC member Bruce Savadkin. It is a colorful box outside OBIC’s lower doors and welcomes people to “take what they need and give what they can”.

It was realized that families need food all year, not just for holidays.

In the early days, congregants were encouraged to bring in non-perishable food items to OBIC to fill the little red wagons. These donations are supplemented by food that is ordered and paid for by financial donations made by congregants. The donations are stored in room 213 upstairs at our Owen Brown Interfaith Center and each day a volunteer uses these items to stock the Little Free Pantry.

Tyrone Morton, the former building manager at OBIC, spoke with the manager of the Owen Brown Giant in 2020 about creating a partnership with the UUCC Food Insecurity Ministry. Following his contact with Giant, volunteers have been going to Giant twice a week to get produce, deli, and bakery items as well as non-perishable food that Giant is unable to sell but is still edible.

A large box was built by Ted Nolan in 2020 for produce. Donations from Giant, Columbia Community Cares, and private citizens keep the produce box in constant use.

The Little Free Pantry has regular visitors as well as new visitors every day. People are always saying thank you and telling us what a difference it makes.

Listen to what former UUCC Food Insecurity co-leader Margaret Hegmann has to say about what it takes to keep the Little Free Pantry stocked for our neighbors, how volunteering in this capacity has expanded Margaret’s understanding of the world as it is, and how YOU can help:

Our Volunteers

Current volunteers: Norma Byers, Anne Gould, Gail Holm, Bob Muller, Lauren Polon, Margie Reyes, Ken Rock, Nancy and Jim Stivers, David and Hope Vasholz, and Cindy Williams

Substitute volunteers: Trish Steinhilber, Dave Titman, and Cindy Hody

Past volunteers: Dave and Margaret Hegmann, Linda Uphoff, Pat Heidel, Annilin and Peter Fort

We also thank Jeri and Cole Wiggins for their commitment to the bagged lunch program and Betsy Osterman and Betty Jackson for coordinating meals for the Grassroots Day Resource Center. These four people dedicated years to these programs.