Every dollar raised goes directly to the Love All Pantry at Central, which tirelessly serves over 2600 local families each month by providing essential fresh fruits, vegetables, meats, and grains.
Our goal for 2025:
Join us at Art Soup 2025 and be a part of an evening that combines artistry with philanthropy, making a tangible difference in our community.
Help Us Make 300+ Bowls for Art Soup!
Art Soup Mobile, Moon Struck Maker Space, and Small Craft Studio are inviting local artists and community members to spend the day making bowls! We’ve set the goal of 300+ bowls in one day, in preparation for Art Soup, to be held Nov 9, 2023 from 6-9 pm.
The Art Soup Throw-a-Thon will be held on Saturday, September 30th from 11am – 5pm at Moon Struck Maker Space in midtown Mobile. Tools, pottery wheels, and clay will be provided. Attendees who wish to make bowls on the pottery wheel should have some experience. No pottery wheel experience? Join the party or come to make hand built bowls with Sticky Fingers Pottery.
Don’t want to get muddy? Small Craft Studio is offering the opportunity to make fabric bowls, with material and sewing machines provided.
We’re excited to announce Art Soup 2023 will be held at Crown Hall in Downtown Mobile on November 9, 2023, 6-9pm. Enjoy live jazz, soups, desserts, and beverages from local restaurants, and of course, beautiful handmade bowls from area artists. Tickets are available now, and we’re offering reduced ticket pricing — $40 — for one week.
Prebuying online tickets also gives attendees early access to choose their exquisite, handcrafted bowl. Tickets can be purchased at the door on Nov 9 for $50 per person. All proceeds for Art Soup 2023 will go to help The Love All Food Pantry at Central feed local community members.
Last year, The Love All Food Pantry at Central, along with hundreds of volunteers and partner organizations fed approximately 38,000 families. Over 1 million pounds of groceries were distributed. This year’s goal is $50,000 (or 5 months of food) for 2600 families per month.
Tickets can be purchased online at https://secure.givelively.org/event/loaves-and-fish-community-ministries-inc/art-soup-2023 or https://loveallpantry.org/art-soup/
For more information, or to sponsor or to volunteer, visit Love All Pantry online at https://loveallpantry.org/art-soup/ or in person at Love All Pantry at 1260 Dauphin St., or email [email protected]
| Our sincere thanks to everyone who contributed their time, talent, and financial support in 2022 enabling Love All Pantry to reduce some of the daily uncertainty that many of the food insecure families we serve too often encounter. |
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| In July 2020, Kathleen Kirk Stoves finished her largest (at that time) outdoor mural at Central Presbyterian Church. Soon after, she was hired for two more murals to be completed across the street at The Alabama School of Math and Science. The painting of her latest design is being overseen by artist Pat Hall of the Central Arts Collective. In the top left photo, Zach DePolo can be seen adding his artistic talent to the central image of this mural hovering over the westside entrance to Love All Pantry at Central Presbyterian Church. Thank you to the Mobile Arts Council, Blankenships’, and United Rentals for your support! |
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| Art Soup 2022 was Phenomenal. Thank you! Over 650 people came and supported the Love All Pantry! Not to mention over 90 volunteers and countless sponsors who donated soup, beverages, marketing, the band, and hundreds of bowls. Thank you all! |
| WKRG News 5 has selected Pantry Director, Connie Guggenbiller, as a finalist in their Remarkable Woman contest! Please take a minute to watch the segment highlighting her work here! |
| Watch on WKRG.com |
| We are so grateful to DoorDash and the United Way of Southwest Alabama for two years of delivering groceries to 150+ families a week as part of their Ride United Last Mile Delivery Program. Filling the shoes that this delivery service provided to food insecure and hungry individuals, families, and community groups will require a commitment of one week per month by new volunteers. Can you help? We need churches, groups, and individuals who are willing to make deliveries once a month. Interested? Call Connie at 251-432-0591. |
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| Please make a tax-deductible donation to Love All Food Pantry. $10 buys 50 pounds of food for families experiencing food insecurity and hunger. From your cell phone, text the code “LOVEALL” to 44-321 to Donate. Or go online at www.LoveAllPantry.org |
In the last three years, households eligible for food assistance received at least $95 more per month as part of a pandemic-era increase to combat hunger. But on March 1, 2023, those emergency benefits began to expire, meaning a smaller monthly food budget for nearly 30 million Americans. This will impact the food insecure families we serve. Please donate as you are able.
Anna Maria Ramirez Sawyer is a hard working volunteer with Colors of Love Ministry through the Mobile First Church of the Nazarene. The volunteers of Colors of Love Ministry deliver food from Love All Pantry to a number of food insecure individuals and families. Thank you for your dedication and service.
Big thank you to Connie Guggenbiller’s daughter, Tracey Langley, and sister, Janice Bohli, for taking on her delivery responsibilities while Connie went on vacation. Also, thank you to Nancy Hannah, Dan McCleave, and Nicki Patterson for your dedicated service delivering to group homes and senior citizen facilities. We still need help! Would you be willing to commit to one Tuesday a month to help us deliver?
Our Volunteer Hero for May is Slade Watson. He tirelessly works behind the scenes to ensure we have all the supplies we need for Tuesdays. His support allows us to feed our volunteers on Tuesdays, after the food distribution is over. Thank you to those who prepare these excellent meals that all our volunteers enjoy after a strenuous day working at the Pantry.
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By Tracy Smith
Food insecurity is a real issue. Even as the worst of the COVID pandemic is over, The Pantry continues to distribute nutritious groceries to over 700 families every week, and there’s no sign of letup! As temperatures reach into the high 90s with 100% humidity threatening our ability to address food insecurity in Mobile’s food deserts, a new walk-in cooler/freezer combo is putting a damper on the heatwave. Purchased through a generous grant from the J. L. Bedsole Foundation, the installation of the walk-in is an important step in creating a more enduring impact on our community.
The vast majority of foundations and granting agencies fund projects that increase the self-sustainability of a cause. While paying for food outright may help families at the moment, fortifying infrastructure helps lower operating costs and reduce the burden on volunteers; both of which create a multiplying effect on the grant’s impact.
“The new freezer/fridge space will help lower our overhead cost of food by allowing us the flexibility to receive more perishable and frozen food as it becomes available,” The Pantry director, Connie Guggenbiller, explains. “Right now we have to turn down opportunities for those items due to storage space. Not only will we be able to store more, but we’ll also save time since volunteers will simply be able to roll pallets into the storage units instead of spending hours loading individual items into our current coolers, then repacking them Tuesday morning for distribution.”
We want your input as we continue to find ways to partner with organizations and foundations to build out and streamline the providing of essential food and community services. We are able to continue to provide fresh and nutritious groceries to the families and elderly in our community who are food-insecure with the help of our amazing partners, donors, and volunteers.
Thousands of Mobilians have limited access to reliable transportation and live more than a mile
away from any source of nutritious groceries. These food deserts contribute to higher rates of
diabetes, heart disease, and other preventable diseases resulting in premature death.
The USDA uses three indicators to determine if an area is a food desert.
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Colors of Love Ministries of the Mobile Church of the Nazarene was started by Ana Maria Ramirez Sawyer in 2016. After retiring from 25 years working with people with disabilities, she knew she couldn’t just sit at home and do nothing. One day she was particularly moved while reading John 21:16 where Jesus asks Peter, “Do you love me?” Peter answers, “Yes.” Jesus says “Feed my sheep.” She felt personally called by Jesus’ words to help the hungry.
First, Colors of Love made and distributed “blessing bags” to the local homeless populations. While the included toiletries were appreciated, it became apparent that a lack of access to food was another pressing need, so the ministry began working with other organizations to prepare and distribute meals; first to the homeless, then to nearby food-insecure Latinx families.
In 2020, Colors of Love began partnering with The Pantry. Every Tuesday, her team picks up and delivers nutritious groceries to dozens of families who have no way to get to Central themselves.
For Ana Maria, it’s an honor to serve God, and it’s a great privilege to bring food to those who don’t have it.
The Food Pantry at Central could not fulfill its mission of providing nutritious groceries to food-insecure Mobilians without each and every one of our volunteers. If we could thank you personally every day, we would!
Volunteer Spotlight
Periodically we highlight one of our volunteers so you can get to know them better. Before the COVID-19 lockdown, Laura Burce hadn’t done much volunteering. Between raising two boys with her husband and extensive work travel there just wasn’t enough time!
After being furloughed from her job as a corporate events organizer, she saw a Facebook post from her neighbor, Susan Comeaux, asking for volunteers to help the pantry. She responded and started serving as a part of our incredible Alabama School of Math and Science Parking Lot Crew. Crew members line up hundreds of cars by appointment time, greet each person to see how they are doing, and check-in each family (many pick up for themselves and up to three other neighbors).
While her day job has resumed, Laura continues volunteering a few hours every Tuesday as she is able. She says the experience has made her feel connected and rooted to the neighbor
A big thank you to the founder of Mobile Porch Parade, Suzanne Sarver, for all she’s done to raise money for The Food Pantry at Central! Recently, she delivered $500 from the proof sales of their beautiful hardcover coffee table book. This was in addition to the $2,494 they had already raised! Suzanne says she picked The Pantry as a beneficiary because of the direct, positive impact it is having on the City of Mobile.
“The Porch Parade started one night out with some people talking around town about wanting a way to still celebrate Mardi Gras without having parades. I saw it as a giant community art project.” “I would highly encourage anybody who’s thinking about it, to raise money for the Food Pantry. What I’ve seen is a really inclusive community here, and I just love the fact that you’re helping anybody and everybody.” The books make excellent gifts and can be purchased from mobileporchparade.com or locally at The Haunted Book Shop and Toomey’s Mardi Gras.
Evelyn Williams has been volunteering at The Food Pantry at Central for over two years. After she broke her femur last year, she had to take a few months off, but as soon as she recovered enough, she began coming back every Tuesday she could. Evelyn, not only helps in the kitchen preparing lunch for all the volunteers, but she also sorts groceries and fills bags for the following week’s distribution. Originally from Jefferson County, AL, she moved to Mobile for high school. She says she loves volunteering at the pantry because she loves people and treats them the way she would want to be treated.
