Raegin Irwin and the Little Free Pantry movement in Erie

by Raegin Irwin

My little free pantry began in October from seeing some pictures online and becoming angry. 

I follow the Pittsburgh DSA page on social media, and they were telling stories of a couple of their boxes downtown that kept getting vandalized.  I was talking  about it one day with my son, Lyrik, and we were both incredulous. A few days after that, my son came to me with an idea.  His birthday was in a couple weeks, and he was anticipating some money.  He wanted to take his birthday cash and start a Little Free Pantry (LFP) outside of our home.  I told him this would be a big adventure, but it was definitely an adventure I wanted to partake in.  

I put a couple feelers out on my own Facebook page, asking for direction, donations, advice, etc.  

From there it just took off.  A friend donated an old record player holder and I hot glued a tarp to it. It was beat up, but worked perfectly!  Lyrik then received his birthday money (a few extra bucks were thrown in knowing what it was going towards), we set forth to Dollar Tree and bought over 60 items that day.  We filled the pantry that night, and the very next morning it was completely empty.  While it was wonderful to see the items get used, it was also heartbreaking that so many people were food insecure.  

A couple weeks after that first night, Lyrik was featured on the news for winning a Good Kid Award.  After that, then donations started to roll in.  It finally started to feel like a success, that maybe we wouldn’t have to fund the whole project ourselves.  

The LFP was going strong for about 6 months, when one day I came home from work and the box was gone.  Someone had indeed taken the entire pantry.  However, that did not deter us.  I started a GoFundMe page to raise money to professionally build a new one that we could cement into the ground.  And boy did the fundraiser exceed all my expectations!!  I raised almost $430 and was not only able to build a new box, but was able to stock it for a couple months as well.  

Shortly after that, I started the Facebook Group page The Little Free Pantry – Erie, in hopes that it would reach more people than just my close friends.  And to my great surprise and joy there it turned out there were other LFP’s in the area as well!  

The group page has grown to be a great collection of people building their own LFP’s, sending pictures of their donations to all the ones in the surrounding neighborhoods and just all-around awesome people showing solidarity with the community.  It has been and continues to be one of the best adventures I’ve ever been on.

Contact Raegin at Little Free Pantry - Erie or raeginirwin@gmail.com

Raegin Irwin, right, and son Lyrik with their Little Free Pantry on West Eighth Street.