Every once in a while, something simply good happens.
The Little Free Pantry Project is one of those things. It started in an Arkansas neighborhood in 2016, quickly became a global movement and found its way to Key West’s Bahama Village neighborhood in late March.
The give-and-take concept is simple; the impacts, immeasurable. Generous neighbors place a simple bookshelf, or “pantry,” in a front yard or vacant lot, then keep it neatly stocked with canned goods and other non-perishable food items. People in need stop by and take what they can use, whenever they can use it, no questions asked.
As the coronavirus pandemic closed Key West businesses, quarantined households and cut paychecks, Krystal Thomas, who lived on Geraldine Street at the time, asked her fiance to build her a wooden bookshelf. She stocked it with canned goods and placed the shelf near the corner of Geraldine and Fort streets, under the bright yellow mural that watches over the corner.
“It was only out there for one day, and all the shelves were emptied, but by a variety of people,” Thomas said. “No one took everything all for themselves.”
Local mail carrier Kevin Paul Taylor, whose route includes much of Bahama Village, created a Facebook page for the Bahama Village Little Pantry and helped Thomas assemble a team of volunteers, including Jim Hale, Christopher Crewe and Karin Doris, to keep the pantry stocked and the area clean. But countless others have stopped by to donate and keep things tidy.
“At least one volunteer stops by daily to check on things and restock. People have been amazing — the ones who give and the ones who need — they’re all so appreciative,” Hale said. “One guy named Tommy came by while I was putting the doors on the other day and he was almost apologizing for being here. He kept promising me that he only takes what he needs.
“I told him to help himself, that’s it’s here for him and anyone else. Then he said he’s temporarily homeless after an accident kept him from working, and that this pantry has saved his life,” Hale said. “Another day, a little kid came by and only took a package of macaroni and cheese.”
But the Little Pantry provides much more than the obvious food for hungry people.
“It gives people an easy and affordable, but truly meaningful and personal way to help others and feel good about something that’s happening in the world right now,” Thomas said, adding that one Key West mom, Kathryn Norris, and her young daughter, stopped to restock the pantry on the little girl’s birthday. “How cool is that?”
Since the Facebook page launched, Taylor and Thomas have received financial donations from people who love Key West, but live elsewhere. Others have sent food donations via Amazon.
Leah Stockton of United Way of the Florida Keys and Stephanie Kaple of the Florida Keys Outreach Coalition for the Homeless recently placed a smaller wooden box at the pantry to create a book exchange that immediately saw magazines, paperbacks and hardcover classics come and go, with some people leaving notes in the inside cover page to trace the book’s travels.
“And this week, with school starting, someone left three brand new backpacks filled with school supplies,” Taylor said with obvious satisfaction.
“The anonymity of the pantry is a big thing for people who need help, and it’s open all the time,” Thomas said. “This project is all about meeting that micro-need in your own neighborhood, and it’s such an easy way for people to do something good for someone else and bring people together. Everyone’s so divided over everything these days.”
Division threatened the pantry project as well, when its only known opponent, who lives a few houses away, discarded the bookshelf Thomas’s fiance had built and all its nonperishable donations. The person tossed it all into a dumpster down the street and said she was concerned about the chickens going after the canned goods and creating a health hazard.
“But we think it’s more of a NIMBY attitude, with her not wanting ‘other people’ from outside ‘our’ neighborhood coming to use the pantry,” Hale said, adding that the confrontation escalated last week when the neighbor called the police on Hale while he was installing doors on the shelves — to keep the chickens away. Hale posted a video of the exchange he had with the opponent after the police had told Hale to continue and drove away.
Social media erupted against the neighbor, until Taylor posted an olive branch of sorts and asked people to “back off” and stop giving the woman a hard time. “I have deleted any posts that referenced her directly or indirectly in any negative light because I want this page to be about all the good The Little Pantry is doing for our community,” Taylor wrote. “No one said that to be One Human Family, we always have to agree on everything. It’s HOW we disagree that matters. (Her) opinion still matters and we have an open line of communication with our team to her.”
The woman immediately responded.
“I cannot tell you how much this means to me. Thank you for posting this. Let’s work together in the spirit of love and cooperation. One Human Family,” she wrote.
The goodwill continued with the next comment.
“THIS is the post I’ve been waiting for. I didn’t like that there was someone causing such a stir for the pantry, but almost as much, I didn’t like the name-calling and attacks on (this neighbor). True change comes when we work together.”
And the next.
“THIS. This is how things are supposed to be. Thank you for being a light in a dark time. Much love and respect from the Outer Banks. You guys truly are One Human Family.”
And in one tiny corner of Key West, something simply good is still happening.
