Live in a community for long enough, and you can go blind to the needs around you.
Vanessa Niekamp lived in Pickerington for years, commuting to downtown Columbus for her government job. In the inner city, the needs felt more pressing. But as she started volunteering at the Pickerington Food Pantry with her son when he was a Cub Scout, she came across people she lived next door to or walked past on the street.
“What I was seeing was a lot of our seniors who were trying to stay in their homes on a very limited income,” Niekamp says. “By coming to the food pantry, it was saving them enough money to make decisions like ‘I can hire somebody to shovel my snow.’”
The pantry also serves single mothers, veterans, families and everyone in between.
“A lot of people didn’t go back to work, or at least not maybe at the level of what they were employed at before COVID-19 happened,” Niekamp says. “Now we still have a much larger clientele that's much more diverse, but we are seeing people once every other week, so we're providing twice the amount of assistance that we were before COVID-19.”
Jamison Speidel
Gambling for good
This growth is why events like the Pickerington Food Pantry Gala are vital. The black-tie event, hosted on May 3 at the Wigwam Event Center, is the pantry’s biggest fundraising event of the year. Guests begin the night with cocktails and appetizers like shrimp cocktail and charcuterie. At 7:15, dinner will be served. The buffet-style meal will have chicken or sirloin for an entree and potatoes and pasta on the side.
Niekamp says that when she started as director, the pantry hosted many smaller events, but this party filled a niche that was lacking in the Pickerington social calendar.
Jamison Speidel
Last year, the event raised $35,000, down from 2023, when they raised $59,000. Part of the flux is the problem that is facing all Americans: inflation.
“In 2024… people's finances had started to change,” Niekamp says. “That’s when everything was costing everybody more. People were thinking about how to spread their money further and sponsoring this event or going to an event like this was just something that they had to say no to.”
This year, the pantry is going for an ambitious $50,000 goal, which they’re attacking through social media advertising and PR campaigns. This money is critical because, unlike many food pantries, Pickerington relies on purchasing food from the Mid-Ohio Food Bank, which sells food at wholesale prices.
“Every dollar that I was able to spend really turned into 11 retail dollars at a local grocery store,” Niekamp says. “So they understand by giving us those funds that we’re able to really stock those shelves throughout the year at the food pantry. It’s for a much-reduced rate versus going and buying green beans and donating them to us.”
Niekamp wants to educate the public about where the donation goes, because seeing each dollar’s impact makes a difference.
“Even if it was $5 or $10 that they spent at the grocery store, actually giving us that $10, we could have made that spread to a case of peanut butter versus the five jars that they purchased,” Niekamp says.
The gala presents a myriad of opportunities for attendees to donate. Besides the $100 ticket and the sponsorships by local companies, competitive raffles keep the donations coming all night long. Also, Niekamp says the casino atmosphere allows participants to roll the dice, and any money that attendees win will be returned to them in raffle tickets.
Jamison Speidel
“There's no guilt involved in the evening when it all is just really going as a donation,” Niekamp says.
The DJ also keeps the tunes bumping on the dance floor.
“If anybody is interested in something specific that they heard in high school, he will make sure it happens,” she says. “We always end up with a lot of people out on the dance floor just having fun and it’s a nice time to if you want to just get dressed up and have an adult event.”
The Moriarty-Lukyanova Dance Academy will also perform at the gala for the third year. This tradition began in 2020 when Elise Vinci, a regular volunteer at the pantry, offered her team as entertainment for the gala. In years past, the dance coincided with the theme, so this year’s black-tie theme will carry over to an elegant ballroom style dance.
The event is capped at 300 tickets, and Niekamp hopes to sell out to maximize the gala’s fundraising potential.
A new perspective
This is the fifth gala Niekamp has planned, and she compares it to the stress of planning a wedding. Every detail must be just right. However, her perspective on the work shifted dramatically in 2023 when she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer.
Niekamp’s chemo didn’t leave her without hair or any visible signs of illness, but each day was a battle. Her experience made her more perceptive of the invisible burdens that people carry.
“You don’t always realize when you’re interacting with somebody at all what they may be going through personally,” Niekamp says. “I think people just don't realize that was just a bad day for that person, and they don’t have any idea what they were going through.”
Niekamp hopes that this gala can be a light to Pickerington residents, providing them with an opportunity to directly impact those who are suffering in their community.
“I do have a lot of our community support,” Niekamp says. “A lot of our elected officials, a lot of our business owners who look at this opportunity as a way to get their name out there as well, but to give back for a good cause.”
Jamison Speidel
Maggie Fipps is an editorial assistant at CityScene Media Group. Feedback welcome at feedback@cityscenemediagroup.com.
