On June 27-29, the O-W Food Pantry held a rummage sale at the Withee Lion’s Shelter in Withee. Much of the energy that went into organizing this event was attributed to Jeffer Scheuer, Owen. She said she needed to sell some of her household items and thought why not donate to the food pantry, from that point the idea grew into a community event.

“The idea was to have a garage sale to benefit the food pantry, so people in the food pantry helped donate things and set up. Once the word got out on social media, other people donated items,” said Jeffer Scheuer. “What we don’t sell, we are going to donate to another group and the clothes will go to Veterans.”

On Saturday morning, Jeffer said they had raised over $1,000 of which they were very pleased. The O-W Pantry purchases food from Feed My People food bank in Eau Claire with the average monthly cost of $900 so the weekend’s sale helped to cover over a month’s worth of food.

The O-W Food Pantry is located at Nazareth Lutheran Church, 1127 Division Street, Withee, and is open from 2-3 p.m. on the third Tuesday of the month. The pantry serves over 100 families monthly including 24 babies/toddlers. Donations of food, diapers and wipes can be deposited at the Owen Library, Owen City Hall and Withee Village Hall. Fresh produce, meat and shelf stable foods is available and anyone in need of extra groceries is welcome. No ID is required. Groceries are loaded right into your vehicle from a drive-thru style distribution. If you live in the Owen-Withee area and are in need of delivery, please call or text Pastor Elizabeth at (715)255-0013 before 2 p.m.

The volunteers from the O-W Food Pantry plan to have another free will rummage sale next year, possibly during the Owen city wide garage sale weekend and they will again accept items to sell from the community so Jeffer advised, “start collecting now.”