Tammi Madison has dedicated almost 20 years helping feed people in Osceola County. For 16 years she served with the St. Cloud Food Pantry, and three years ago she founded Pantry Planters, where she helps provide resources and training to those interested in opening a food pantry in Osceola County.
“It’s my passion,” she said. “I want to feed our people.”
Thanks to a generous $30,000 donation from the Grand Chapter of Florida Order of the Eastern Star, Madison said she will be able to feed a lot more people. She plans to divide the money among local schools to purchase food for students to take home to their families.
“We’ll be working through social services,” Madison said. “They will know children in which schools need help.”
But Madison won’t stop with just purchasing the food. She’ll be using her decades of expertise to establish food pantries in schools that don’t currently have them, and will train the pantry operators in how to keep things going.
“I’m partnered up with the school district and I have the superintendent’s support, so I can go to the schools, and if they don’t have a pantry, I’ll be in the back office teaching them how to run a pantry out of their school,” Madison said. “I’ll be helping them get community support—like businesses— helping support them, and I’ll be able to purchase food with that money and help them get started with some food in the school.”
Madison’s experience helps her not only with the big picture, but with smaller details, as well. “Depending on the inventory, we try to make sure that the food that is accepted will be consumed,” she said. “Take Poinciana area, for example. We make sure they have the canned beans and the rice … those kinds of staples that that community likes to eat. We don’t want to give them something that they’re not going to like or know how to fix. They’re dealing with a lot of stress already. This is a positive thing coming into their home.”
Debbie Rosenthal, Worthy Grand Matron of The Grand Chapter of Florida Order of the Eastern Star, said that each year, the organization donates to food pantries. When she heard about how Madison’s business works, she says she was impressed.
“It is our hope that, by giving these funds, we can help a bunch of kids,” Rosenthal said, “and help give [Madison] a good start on all these food pantries in the schools.”
“We know that [students] are at least getting breakfast and lunch in the schools, if it’s a Title I school,” Rosenthal said. “But we don’t know what’s happening to them after they go home. So this food pantry is supposed to be where they can pick up some sort of food to take home with them in order for them to be able to have some sort of a dinner or maybe even just a snack. And I just felt like this was something worthwhile that is desperately needed in our area.”
To learn more about Pantry Planters and how you can get involved, visit www.pantryplanters.org or email pantryplanters@gmail.com.
For more information about the Florida Order of Eastern Star, visit https://floridaoes.org.
