A Spirit of Generosity

Our Daily Bread Food Pantry’s new home is on the verge of opening on Marco Island. The repurposed building, formerly the Fifth Third Bank building at 1818 San Marco Road, is being remodeled and transformed to optimize food receiving and distribution. The adjacent empty lot has been acquired and is now a tastefully landscaped parking area that will serve as a queuing area. Our Daily Bread’s Executive Director, Evelyn Rossetti-Ryan, expects to start welcoming guests to the property by the end of summer.

"It was designed to be a bank back in 2006,” said Rossetti-Ryan, "and we were able to purchase this building in October of 2023. When we acquired it, even though it was owned by a dentist in between, it still looked like a bank. We had teller bays, we had a safe, we had safe deposit boxes, we had the drive-thru bays. Now the building has been designed to be a food pantry. And with that, we designed it for optimal efficiency in terms of receiving food as well as distributing food. To address that efficiency, we put in two roll-up doors. When we are receiving the food, the truck backs up and we have refrigeration and freezer units right next to the rollup door and it goes directly into one of those respective units."

The remodel focuses on efficiency and adaptability with flexible storage to optimize food distribution. The middle of the building is a large open space for staging food distribution, and there is the designated Sue Miller Backpack Room in the southeast corner of the building for preparing weekend backpack meals.

"Sue Miller was a volunteer with Our Daily Bread Food Pantry,” Rossetti-Ryan said. “She was an integral part of our team and was very passionate about our youth programs. When she unfortunately passed away far too young, she left a bequest in her will to put towards the pantry. So, we're naming this section for Sue. This will accommodate, store, and serve as the preparation section for all of the weekend backpack meals and snacks that we distribute to schools here on Marco Island as well as in Naples. We put the food in a bag, and it’s enough food to hopefully see a child through the weekend. It'll have snacks and easy-to-prepare meals and breakfasts. It could have shelf-stable milk. It'll have cereal, fruit cups, shelf-stable yogurt, things of that nature. We try to make it as healthy as we can. We put the food in plastic bags, which get put into the students' backpacks."

The remodeling project, managed by Nancy Kot and Robert Thomas, will be completed on time and on budget.

“Nancy’s been our internal project manager and really helped so much to make it come together,” Rossetti-Ryan said. “Nancy is a member of our board of directors, and Robert is our site manager from BUILD.”

BUILD is a construction management company headquartered in Naples whose clients include Arthrex, Artis-Naples, and the YMCA. Thomas said improvements to the drive-thru area and the acquisition of the lot next door are keys to the project’s success.

“We started last fall,” Thomas said. “We extended that empty lot and made the drive-thru for them also. The landscape going in makes it really nice. Makes it look like a park setting.”

In addition to the improved lot, the food pantry will utilize Capt. Horr Way, a one-way alley that runs behind the building, to safely handle traffic flow.

“We quickly knew that the way the pantry has been growing and with the traffic that we attract, particularly on our Saturday distribution dates, we really needed more space,” Rossetti-Ryan said. “So, by June of 2024, we acquired the lot next door. And not that long ago, it still looked like an empty lot. But now it's been paved. It's being landscaped. This is going to be a very important queuing area. This is going to be an important area for us to manage our registration when folks come in and we welcome our guests. We register our guests and then we monitor the traffic flow. People will enter our property by Capt. Horr Way and they're going to come around. They're already starting to paint the arrows. They will come in and we will welcome everyone as we always do. We will register folks or check them in. Then they will circle around the front of the building. That way it should be easy access. It'll get folks off San Marco. They can turn from San Marco Road onto Capt. Horr Way. And then they have the whole lot to queue around so we can keep the traffic moving to mitigate any traffic back-up on San Marco road. Folks will come around and they’ll see this amazing landscaping, all done by Affordable Landscaping.”

Rossetti-Ryan is grateful for the Marco landscaping contractor.

“They are working with us and just doing a phenomenal job,” she said. “Some of their services have been donated pro bono. A lot of the new landscaping they've given us at a phenomenal, very competitive rate."

Kot is particularly thankful for a safety feature that will protect the food pantry in the event of a major hurricane.

"We have flood panels that we will put around the building,” Kot said. “Tampa General Hospital did it during the last hurricane. You're going to see it here. Because, unfortunately, we have to be prepared.”

Rossetti singled out Scot Kaufman for his generosity. The building is named in Pat and Scot Kaufman’s honor.

"Scot Kaufman enabled us to purchase this building,” Rossetti-Ryan said. "This is the perfect space. I feel like this space has been a Godsend. Scott Kaufman has been a Godsend, along with everyone in the community who has generously invested in Our Daily Bread Food Pantry.”

Rossetti-Ryan, who has been with Our Daily Bread for two years, said their growth has been nothing short of phenomenal.

"We are absolutely growing,” she said. "We are, on average, just on a Saturday, serving approximately 1,100 families. That's families. That's households. However, we also have appointments and deliveries. Deliveries are for people who may be homebound. Appointments are for people who may be working or unable to get here when we're open on Saturday mornings. They can make an appointment to pick up groceries, but we also go to where our guests are. We go to Saint Mark's Episcopal Church. We do a mobile pantry there. We have a mobile pantry at Saint Finbar Church in Naples. We have a mobile pantry at the high school. So, when you put the mobile pantries, plus appointments and deliveries, plus a Saturday distribution, we are serving no fewer than 1,200 to 1,400 households every single week. When we started ten years ago, we served 820 households the whole year. And that doesn't include our youth programs. We are working with all of the schools here in Marco Island, as well as four schools in Naples."

Some may question the need for a food pantry in an affluent area like Marco Island. They would be sorely mistaken, according to Rossetti-Ryan.

"I would invite them to come and observe on a Saturday morning,” she said, "and to see the working people who are waiting in line from as early as 6:00 in the morning. They may be Uber drivers. They may be house cleaners; they may be home health aides or medical assistants. They could be roofers or construction builders, or landscapers. People from many, many different professions. These are working people, striving hard, working hard to make ends meet for their families. And thanks to Our Daily Bread Food Pantry, we are able to provide households with a cart of food that is the equivalent of approximately $140 in value, depending upon where inflation is that week. That's helping to ease the stress and the burden on working households. Between 10-14 percent of the people who utilize our pantry live on Marco Island. A much larger percentage of people who utilize our pantry work on Marco Island. They could be line cooks, they could be bartenders, they could be roofers, hairdressers, you name it. Some of them may be seniors who are house-rich but cash-poor. Circumstances may change. Somebody may lose a job, or there could be a sudden change of circumstance in the household. So we are there to really reach out to our neighbors in need and provide that nourishment, that encouragement, and that hope."

Rossetti-Ryan, who is Our Daily Bread’s only paid staff member, said the Marco community is generous with their time and resources.

"Many of our volunteers are Marco people or they may live in Southeast Naples,” she said. "Marco is a phenomenal community. It's an extraordinary community. One like I've not seen anywhere else. It's got an incredible spirit of generosity, a spirit of community partnership and investment and helping one another. Whether it's time, talent, treasure, or all of the above, I find Marco to be just an amazing place. Marco is exceptional, from our phenomenal Chamber of Commerce, who are doing a food drive for us this summer with Executive Director Dianna Dohm, to all of the residential communities and churches and businesses who have our yellow bins for people to donate food to us. The connections to our community are amazing, and we're all connected. So whether one day you're giving food and one day you're getting food. It's all part of the same whole."