A Fort Madison teenager cooked up an idea to help families create meals out of the food they receive from the local food pantry.
Abrie Asay said she frequently hears questions while helping customers at the pantry, where she is a volunteer.
“What can I do with a cake mix if I don’t have an oven? What do I do with beans? Or, ew, veggies, gross. People envision eating veggies out of a can, and sometimes that’s not very appetizing at all,” she said.
It occurred to her not everybody is taught how to be creative in the kitchen with a limited amount of food.
“And so that’s kind of where my inspiration came from. I’m like, why don’t we make a cookbook?”
The cookbook project
Abrie had to raise money and come up with recipes for the cookbook, and some of those recipes had to be for people who don’t have an oven -- they do their cooking in a microwave, a toaster oven, or on a hot plate
Abrie distributed fliers and got the word out through the Fort Madison Area Chamber of Commerce and local media, and donations and recipes started coming in.
She also got some recipes from home. Her mother buys many of the same foods that are handed out at the pantry.
“We cook with tuna and canned corn and different things like that. My mom has been helping me through this whole thing, so a lot of the recipes came from her,” Abrie said. “And then I’ve had so many wonderful people just come in with stacks of recipes.”
Abrie also found recipes on blogs and websites. The book will give credit to those who’ve shared recipes and to the online sources.
The taste test
Abrie tried many of the recipes herself to make sure they taste good.
“I found Crockpot dump cake. That was really easy. You put cake mix and fruit and butter in a Crockpot. You put it out for two hours and – voila – you’ve got a delicious dessert!” she said.
She also found a recipe in a really old church cookbook for porcupines.
“I looked at that and I was kind of skeptical. I was like, what is this? And it was kind of cheesy looking,” she said.
“But I made it. It was actually really good. It’s meatballs with rice in it and you serve it with this tomato sauce. It was actually pretty good. I’ve definitely found some interesting recipes.”
She said the meatballs kind of look like porcupines because the rice sticks out of them.
Abrie ultimately collected around 130 recipes, and she raised more than enough money to pay for the cookbooks.
“Lots of people with huge hearts,” she said.
Finishing the project
The next step was to decide how many to print. That’s when she learned the Fort Madison Food Pantry helps about 500 families a month.
“I was shocked. Wow! That’s not 500 individuals. That’s 500 families. That’s a lot of people,” she said, calling it “a real eye opener.”
Abrie is a senior at Iowa Connections Academy, an online public school. She plans to go on to college to study engineering.
She has been volunteering at food pantries for around four years. She recently moved to southeast Iowa, and started volunteering at the Fort Madison Food Pantry about six months ago.
She said through the cookbook project, she learned about the importance of adapting.
“Lots of learning with that because you have a plan but it never goes the way you want it,” she said.
She also said you should never give up.
Abrie said the cookbook started out as a project for a scholarship. She applied for the Herbert Hoover Uncommon Student Award in Iowa. Part of the process is to propose a project that impacts the community or a person.
Abrie did not get the scholarship, and initially she was disappointed.
“But then I realized, it’s not about the scholarship. It’s about helping people,” she said.
She said that is what’s truly important to her.
The manuscript has now been sent to the printer. Cooking on a Shoestring should be ready by late November. That way Abrie can give them to families during December, as a Christmas gift.
One book for each of the food pantry’s 500 families.
About the Fort Madison Food Pantry
The food is free – customers just have to show that they live in Fort Madison, such as with an envelope that has their address on it.
The pantry is designed for people who are food insecure.
“The number of people that we’ve been serving has just about doubled within the last two years,” said Kathy Nelson, vice president of the Fort Madison Food Pantry Board.
The Fort Madison Food Pantry, 3421 Avenue L, is open three days a week:
- Monday: 9:00 a.m. – noon and 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
- Wednesday: 9:00 a.m. – noon and 1:00 p.m. – 4:00 p.m.
- Friday: 9:00 a.m. – noon and 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Nelson said around 75 volunteers work at the pantry. Some help the customers, others come in on the weekends to restock the shelves, and others unload food from delivery trucks.
She said one volunteer does the landscaping at the building.
Nelson said some customers have jobs, but the work doesn’t pay enough to cover the cost of housing, transportation, food, and other living expenses.
“I’ve seen several people come up here (who) are walking (or) riding a bicycle. I remember seeing one guy that was riding a bicycle and he had hooked up a little trailer behind so that they could get their groceries home,” she said.
A truck from The Food Bank of Iowa comes every two weeks to deliver food ordered and paid for by the food pantry.
Nelson said some of the food also comes from local residents. She said people have brought in potatoes, watermelons, green beans, and other produce from their gardens.
In addition, grocery stores donate food that’s approaching its expiration date.
She said everyone using the food pantry gets a gallon of milk, a dozen eggs, a pound of margarine or butter, and some kind of meat.
The food bank began its operations out of a church basement. It is now housed in its own building, which previously was an auxiliary library.
Nelson said they are funded through grants, and through donations from churches and other organizations.
“We’re just so blessed here in Fort Madison at the number of people who turn and help us,” Nelson said, adding that so far they’ve been able to keep up with the demand.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports Fort Madison’s poverty rate is 14.9%
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