ACTION: What has your nominee done or is currently
doing?
Patricia
has always held a volunteer role in her community for as long as she can
remember. In 1992 when Pat and her husband, John, moved to Muir, they
started volunteering. In two years they
witnessed an increase in people needing help in their communities and
started speaking to the local Churches and organizations to which they belonged
to. This included the Eastern Stars and Masons of Lyons where they raised more
money and recruited volunteers for the food pantry. When they were told about Feeding America
they raised more funds and began buying van loads of food at a fraction of the
cost. In 2003 Pat was asked to take over
running the Muir Christian Food Pantry. And
with the aid of her family, Patricia continues to serve the community by
providing emergency food to families on demand and hosting a 1 day a month food
distribution to local families struggling to provide food on a limited monthly
budget. On weeks that the food pantry is
not open she is still working on funding and puts about 10 to 15 hours a week
in and on weeks it is open she puts about 25 hours. She orders the food,
arranges pick up, helps unload and organize shelves, calls people to volunteer
or to donate.
Patricia
remembers her family always helping out people and cleaning the church. Patricia has been a life-long member of the
North Plains Baptist Church where her parents attended and her grandchildren
still attend! Pat's parents always
instilled in them the importance of helping people. As a child she went along with her dad to
help community members and as a teen she would always volunteer for anything
her school had going, including decorating for community events and dances,
helping with elderly neighbors, and being a part of 4-H.
As
an adult, Pat continued to be involved as a 4-H Leader to her children, nieces
and nephews, and neighbors. As a young adult she also
volunteered her time to the Eastern Star for their monthly dinners. When she began to
have children, Patricia taught them the importance of community by bringing them along to the special events she was helping
with. Patricia also served as a Sunday
School Teacher for years at the North Plains Church and always helped out new
neighbors, chaperoned school outings, and cleaned the church. She instilled in her children the value of
having respect for the Lords House and all that they were lucky to have. She also served as a Girl Scout leader, Boy
Scout Den Mother, and Republican delegate several times representing Muir, Michigan
and the families that lived there.
NEED: What community need(s) does your nominee
address?
Over the years, the
requests for help from the pantry have increased dramatically. When the pantry started over 35 years ago,
volunteers served around 20 families a year.
That has increased to nearly 120 families seeking assistance each month.
Several businesses in
the area have been forced to close, leaving few job resources available to
families. Most residents work on the
family farm or in one of the neighboring towns of Ionia or Portland, or further
away in Grand Rapids or Lansing.
Patricia comes from a generation where neighbors helped neighbors. If a neighbor needed clothes or toys for
their children, Patricia and her husband would give what they could to
help. As local business owners, the
Davis' remember a time when the community was busy and filled with family
activities. To watch families leave the
area or struggle to survive with meager resources only builds to Patricia's
heartfelt need to help community members where ever she can. She has watched the community in which she
lives grow and shrink countless times, but you can always count on Pat to give
of herself. In fact, Pat's daughters
have been forced to "Lay Down the Law" in order to keep Pat from
giving away the clothing on her back!
She has such a caring heart and desire to help her community members
that Patricia has a hard time knowing her limits. Even though she has struggled with personal
health issues over the last year, she continues to serve the community with
every ounce of energy she has!
IMPACT: What is different as a result of your
nominee’s service?
Just by adding up weekly commitments to the food pantry,
Patricia easily spends 1020 hours each year coordinating donations,
distribution days, and managing the pantry.
Since she began 10 years ago, Patricia Davis has easily served over
10,000 hours. Each month volunteers at
the food pantry serve 60+ families and for holidays the pantry generally
prepares at least 100 food boxes to make a special meal for local
families. As coordinator Patricia
oversees an average 22 volunteers in the pantry each month who contribute a
minimum of 146 volunteer hours each month stocking, cleaning, and sorting food
to make the pantry a vital community asset.
As part of the Community Food Network, Patricia
volunteered 48 hours in 2012 attending planning meetings, trainings, and
special events. Many of this time was
dedicated to the County-wide Food Drive in which 265 volunteers contributed
over 868 volunteers to collect over 6,000 food items and over $800 in
donations. Without Pat's dedication to
this project and all the work she put into planning and coordinating the
project for 8 food pantries throughout Ionia County there is no way this food
drive would have been this successful!
With the aid of her family, Patricia oversees two
Community Gardens to grow fresh produce for the food pantry. One is located beside the pantry where those
in need can pick their own produce when available straight from the
garden. Another is located near the
North Plains church and is taken care of by Pat's family and church
members. Yet, there is still a need for
more fresh produce to help local families and therefore Pat has reached out to
local growers and farmers requesting that left over produce be donated to the
pantry. In 2012, a family wanted
desperately to have their own garden but required new top soil to make it
happen. Patricia tried tirelessly to
find a donation of topsoil for this family and eventually ending up making this
donation herself. The family showed
their appreciation by making weekly donations of fresh produce from their
garden back to the food pantry helping other local families to enjoy the
benefit of enjoying fresh produce.