News Photo by Temi Fadayomi Volunteers distribute food to a vehicle at Wildcat Stadium as part of the pop-up pantry event on Friday.

ALPENA — On Friday, Alpena Public Schools partnered with Feed the Need and the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan to host this month’s pop up pantry community food distribution event at Wildcat Stadium.

“We were looking for opportunities for the district to serve the community,” APS Superintendent David Rabbideau said about hosting the event. “I think it went well.”

Pop-Up Pantry is an event held every month in Alpena that sees food provided by the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan distributed for free by volunteers to those who are present at the venue. The food donated consists of produce, frozen food, and dry goods.

Normally, these events are hosted at St John’s Church on the third Saturday of the month, however for July the Food Bank partnered with APS to have it hosted at Wildcat Stadium.

“This month in Alpena County we worked with the public schools,” said Courtney Holmes, Food Bank of Eastern Michigan Regional outreach coordinator of Alpena, Alcona, Cheboygan, Montmorency, Otsego, and Presque Isle counties.

Normally we do host it at St John’s Church on the third Saturday of the month, for some scheduling reasons and because we wanted to work with the schools we (are) holding it here this month. I think it worked out great.”

Cars were allowed into the event from Bagley Street at the Wildcat Stadium gate across from Alpena Alcona Area Credit Union while volunteers for the event got the food separated and ready for distribution.

By the time everything was set up, there was a line of more than 100 cars. The cars were split into two lines where volunteers then provided each car with food as they reached the front of the line.

“I think that they are being very organized about it,” Brenda Ball, an Alpena resident who participated in the PoP-Up Pantry said. “I think it’s a great thing that the community needs.”

Nearly 40 volunteers from both APS and the Salvation Army were present at the event and assisted in numerous tasks such as ordering traffic and keeping track of the cars that came through among other tasks.

“I’m happy to help,” Tracy Shoemaker, an employee in Alpena High School’s registrar office who volunteered at the event, said. “Most of us have a point in our lives where we maybe need a bit of a hand up, so it’s very humbling to be able to give one to people who need it.”

Both the participants and organizers were pleased with Friday’s event and the APS is interested in doing more events like this in the future.

“It’s a big undertaking,” APS Director of Communications Lee Fitzpatrick said about the event. “I would love to do more of these in the summer or when we are on break.”