TOLEDO, Ohio —
Brooke Winkelman opened the Paws & People Pantry in late August to give her neighbors in need a place to grab necessities at no cost.
"I wanted to be able to do something to help the community," Winkelman said. "I never imagined initially that it would be on this scale."
The pantry on Airport Highway behind Hound Haven is completely funded by donations and Winkelman's own wallet.
"Stuff that I like to keep stocked are obviously non-perishable foods like flavored tuna packets," she said. "Laundry soap is in high demand. Dog and cat food."
Over the weekend, Winkelman restocked the shed with hundreds of dollars' worth of necessities, including individually wrapped snack foods like granola bars and pudding cups.
Within hours of that restock, all of the snacks were gone.
"In my mind, it was going to last us through the week until next weekend when I could do another grocery shopping haul," she said. "Within two hours, pretty much all of the snacks were wiped out, which was a big bummer."
Winkelman says cameras caught a few individuals taking beyond their fair share, despite a sign on the door asking people to be respectful of what they take.
Because of the incident, she's no longer restocking the pantry with individually wrapped snacks.
"If anyone wants to drop stuff by, that's totally fine," Winkelman said. "But I won't be purchasing large amount of snack foods like that anymore."
Winkelman is trying to stay positive, though. She says she made a social media post about the incident, which received dozens of shares and hundreds of comments. That post helped Winkelman reach even more people, who didn't know about the pantry until then.
"I had one woman comment and say 'this is unfortunate, but if it hadn't happened and someone hadn't shared this post, I wouldn't have known about your pantry,'" Winkelman said. "She already brought stuff out."
To learn more about the Paws & People Pantry, click here.
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