MILWAUKEE — Tucked within the walls of the Hmong American Friendship Association in Milwaukee’s Washington Park neighborhood is the Southeast Asian Food Pantry, offering support and sustenance to its patrons for more than 30 years.
“We feel like we need to belong in the neighborhood here. We need the neighbor to know that we exist to serve the community,” said Lo Neng Kiatoukaysy, Executive Director, Hmong American Friendship Association.
Executive Director Lo Neng says its creation stemmed from a growing need to serve the community, after learning that it was hard for people to find culturally appropriate foods for their families.
“For example, Hmong people don't really know how to utilize being beans, whereas Hispanic people do. We utilize rice more as part of our staple diet. So, we work with other food pantries to give them beans, where they give us rice,” said Lo Neng Kiatoukaysy.
Pantry Coordinator William Xiong says their service system is simple: they work primarily with three city ZIP codes: 53208, 53205 and 53218.
Any household that lives within those limits can come and grab a box of food once a month.
But, in the last few years, they have opened it up even further.
“We do have two separate areas in our pantry: one that has to meet the requirements of these ZIP codes and the other one that we open as an opportunity for anyone in the neighborhood who would like to come in and just grab something for themselves and their family,” said Xiong.
The move came about three years ago, after the pantry shut down for two weeks at the start of the pandemic.
After seeing how much their neighbors were struggling, they reopened and went from serving about 8,000 households a year to nearly 40,000.
“After a while, we said we need to be on the frontline, we need to fight this pandemic. Part of the way we can do that is that we need to open the food pantry. And the numbers just kept increasing because people need food. They need places to go to get food,” said Lo Neng Kiatoukaysy.
As the pantry continues to grow, they say their goal is to make sure everyone feels welcome.
“The people who are coming here are people who trust us and they are more comfortable with us and with our presence here. We look like them and they look like us and so it just feels like home when they come here,” said Xiong.
The pantry is open on Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and on Fridays from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m.
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