In the Beginning
When Brad Bennett was an Associate Pastor at St. John’s, from 1999-2003, his office was off the south side of the sanctuary. Beside his office was a door to the outside. After multiple knocks from people requesting food, he approached the mission committee to help distribute food to those in need. For a while, he stored food donated by the congregation in his office.
At some point, the storage place was moved from Brad’s office to the North Hallway. Mission committee member Sandy Szabat and Brad purchased shelving and several cases of non-perishable food that was stored in what is now the custodian’s closet.
In a St. John’s April 2007 Messenger article, Betty Watson wrote an article this about Clarice Cole. Eventually, that distribution grew to serving 40-50 families and singles.
In an August 15, 2005, Charles Cole sent a letter to the New Mexico Conference News with a description of St. John’s pantry
The “Bag ‘n Hand” ministry at St. John’s UMC, Santa Fe, at the time of the letter was providing food for 355 families a month, or 1,496 persons. The ministry began in 2002 with church members bringing bags of food that were distributed to persons as requested . Since that time, the number of people asking for food has grown steadily. At the time of this letter, the ministry shared food two mornings a week, weekly requiring 15 volunteers, who greeted each person in a friendly manner and filled bags from the stock of food on the shelf. Most recipients spoke Spanish and some may have been nonresident aliens. The recipients frequently expressed their appreciation for the food and often helped to carry food from the delivery truck to the storeroom.
Coordinator Sandy Szabat had recruited three other local congregations to participate in the ministry: St. Bede’s Episcopal Church, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation, and Temple Beth Shalom.
The Santa Fe Food Depot provided government commodities each week, supplemented by food donated by the four participating congregations. Monetary gifts an allowed for the purchase of additional items. At that time, St. John’s included the Bag ‘n Hand Ministry in its monthly Faith Promise offerings, when local and regional missions were given special attention. The ministry was administered by St. John’s Mission and Outreach Committee.
For many years, the weekly schedules in the newsletter listed North Hallway as the location of the pantry distribution on Mondays and Thursdays, but at some point, they moved into the Fellowship Hall. In 2014, a nursery school that had been meeting in the church decided to move elsewhere, which made available the basement that school had used as a classroom. This made it possible to move the pantry to the current location in the basement.
The Second Decade of the Bag ‘n Hand Pantry
In December 2010, pantry volunteers and the church staff gathered in the Fellowship Hall for a potluck to honor Wilson Holman’s ten years of service to the pantry.
In June 2011, the name in an article about a nutrition class was a combination of the two names that had been used: St. John’s Bag ‘n Hand Food Pantry, but this was later changed to the original Bag ‘n Hand Pantry.
About that time, the Pantry offered a class aimed at making healthy eating decisions. Fifteen women attended six weeks of classes each Monday, when they were guided as they made simple, wholesome recipes and tasted them. One session on “Stretching Food Dollars” covered careful meal planning, shopping, comparing prices and using leftovers.
In 2014, the distribution moved to the church basement, where long tables held fruits, vegetables, bread, desserts, and meat on Tuesday and Thursdays. Customers came in the double doors and picked up a number which put them in the order they could go to the registration table and then get a cart and select there food. The took the cart outside to load the into their vehicle. By that time, the customer list had grown significantly. The week of April 20, 2025, volunteers served 265 people; 17 of them were new customers.
What’s in a Name and a Logo?
For a while, no one seemed to know who named the pantry until Brad Bennett confessed that it came to him one day, perhaps, because he’d handed out so many bags in his hand in the early days.
Sometime around 2006, the pastor wrote an article asking if the readers knew “the difference between the Food Pantry, the Bag ‘n Hand and Commodities Distribution.” He admitted some were confused about who they were and that many were calling it “The Food Pantry,” so they decided to call it “The St. John’s Food Pantry.” By 2014, the name went back to Bag ‘n Hand Pantry.
In the early years, two logos appeared in Messenger newsletters: the black-and- white one in 2005 and the other 2007.
The logo with the bag in a hand did not appear until sometime around 2010 when Paul D’Arcy, who was on the Steering Committee, worked with Laura Stewart, a local artist, to create the logo. The location of the original source is unknown, but recently Ellen Herr updated the logo to make it softer and smoother.
Initially, St. John’s members provided the food that Brad Bennett distributied from his office. After that, funds came from a variety of sources. In April 2002, he received a letter from the church board of directors recognizing a donation of $1500 for St. John’s hunger program. In May of that year, the church requested TEFAP assistance, but initially, they did not meet all the requirements, which were explained for them to become eligible. In May of 2003, Sandy Szabat requested assistance from other churches in Santa Fe to join St. John’s in an inter-faith ministry, but no information about that effort has been found.
Currently, the pantry receives donations through St. John’s Foundation and congregation, the Santa Fe community, and multiple grants that support this outreach mission.
How is the pantry funded?
How did the Pantry Get Volunteers?
In addition to the story about Clarice Cole, the very first volunteer, the newsletters from the early days of the pantry mentioned multiple exceptional volunteers. In 2007, Scott Penrod, the senior pastor, wrote an article about Wilson Holman, who worked with the pantry starting in 2003 or 2004:
Rev. Wilson Holman a United Methodist clergy on leave, began working in the Food Pantry after a volunteer told him about it at a church school party. The next day he joined the volunteers, but only a few came that day, but Marilyn Butterstein, the coordinator at that time, told him the ministry would grow by word of mouth. Wilson began going to the Santa Fe Food Depot to pick up the food early Monday morning to have it ready for distribution by 10 a.m. Then he also went on Wednesdays to prepare for the Thursday distribution.
Other volunteers commented that Wilson spent time talking with the recipients while they waited. He’d ask about their families and how they were doing. He also went to funerals for family members of the recipients. Wilson also suggested that when “you give the food first, they give community back to you.” (From story in August 2007 Messenger.)
In 2005, Betty Watson wrote a story for the January Messenger about the last person to receive food one day. The lady said, “You’re church ladies, aren’t you?” and tears came into her eyes as she asked the volunteers to pray with her, and they did. The point was that volunteers knew the people who came regularly and related to them as human beings.
In a pastor’s comments in December 2005, he gave his thanks to the 25 volunteers — eight of whom were from other churches: Steve Barela, Bill Betts, Franklin Bruch, Anneke Chittim, Clarice Cole, Tomas Gonzales, Ken Harmon, Wilson Holman, Clark and Carol Johnson, Debbie Kerwick, Sue Land, J.C. Linson, Claire Meador, Betty Milroy, Debbie and Arlana Murphy, Brian and Kathy Parkhill, Jim and Frances Pirtle, Ed Rector, Delia Sayle, Elaine Snell, Katie Sward, Jeff and Sandy Szabat, Scott and Carolyn Vail, Bud and Betty Watson.