SPARTA, Mich. — A Sparta church is helping local families with the costs of raising a child through a free community pantry dedicated to infant supplies.
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Holy Family Catholic Church launched its Essential Needs Baby Pantry last fall to provide diapers, clothes, and other baby items at no cost to families in need.
"It's a difficult thing for them to say they need help. So, we wanted them non-judgmental place where they can come and get what they need," said Jane Thelen, the pantry's chairperson.
The pantry serves families like Alexis Koren, a stay-at-home mother of two who gave birth to her second child, Michael, six weeks ago. Living on her husband's income alone requires careful budgeting, she said.
"It's extraordinarily doable, but it requires a lot of budgeting and financial strategy, and diapers are expensive and necessary. You can't cut back on diapers," Koren said.
Thelen said the church identified a gap in community services when creating the pantry.
" We looked in the neighborhood, and we have many food pantries, many clothing pantries, but nothing that would serve the babies," she said.
The pantry, which stocks donated items including brand-new clothes, operates on the first and third Saturdays of each month. It's open to anyone in the community without restrictions.
For Koren, the pantry represents more than just free supplies.
"It's more than just grabbing something you need. It's something, it's the parish community coming together to support a community, the community as a whole, here in Sparta," she said.
The positive response from families keeps volunteers motivated, Thelen said.
"Just one mom coming in saying, you know, you don't understand how this has helped us. You know that just keeps us going," she said.
Koren and her husband plan to give back to the pantry once their children are older.
"Right now, we're going, and we're getting things that we need, and then when our kids are grown, grown up a little bit, then we're going to donate back what we can," she said.
The pantry is open on the first and third Saturdays of the month from 10 a.m. to noon at Holy Family Catholic Church in Sparta.
For information on how to donate, CLICK HERE.
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