Battle Creek Food Pantry Offers Healthy Options, Community Support
Lindsay Knake
| 4 min read
Lindsay Knake is a brand journalist for Blue Cross B...
Key Takeaways
- Love Thy Neighbor Food Pantry in Battle Creek, Michigan, is providing local residents with healthy food and nutrition, with a focus on community and a personal touch.
- The food pantry serves those who need extra food, including younger working people, seniors and families and offers a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as staples like pasta and rice.
- Love Thy Neighbor Food Pantry has become a resource hub, offering not only food but also health care resources, nutrition classes and a garden, with the goal of improving the overall health of its patrons.
With a focus on community and a personal touch, Love Thy Neighbor Food Pantry in Battle Creek is supporting local residents with healthy food and nutrition.
Love Thy Neighbor serves those who need extra food, including younger working people, seniors and families. Last year, the food pantry had 9,240 visits, said Polly Barrett, co-director. Volunteers also pack 300 backpacks of food for kids a week to supplement their meals during weekends and the summer, a program led by co-director Ed Dennis.
Patrons can visit the food pantry every two weeks. When a patron arrives, they see a menu and a volunteer takes their order for refrigerated foods. Then, the patron gets a cart and gets to pick from each area based on availability. The pantry offers:
- Cereal
- Pasta and rice
- Canned soup
- Beans
- Boxed milk
- Pastries and sweets. Cakes for families during their birthday.
- Fresh vegetables and fruits, including apples, potatoes and onions
- Bread
- Peanut butter
- Toiletries
- Kitchen items such as containers, dish soap and mops
Their experience is like walking through a grocery store, Barrett said. Individuals may be able to choose two or four items, and families could pick up to eight depending on the section.
“I like that we are letting them pick,” Barrett said. “People know what they already have.”
The fresh milk is a new addition to Love Thy Neighbor. The food pantry received a Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan grant for a refrigerator in December 2025. Now installed, Love Thy Neighbor offers 40 gallons and 27 half gallons of milk each week. They also use the refrigerator to store cheese, yogurt and eggs. Previously, fresh milk storage was an issue and Love Thy Neighbor offered boxed milk to supplement.
More than 90% of patrons take the fresh milk. Milk has protein, vitamins and calcium and is useful for both drinking and cooking. Cereal is popular among patrons, Barrett said.
Connections with the local community and a do-it-yourself spirit are key parts of Love Thy Neighbor’s success. The food pantry receives egg donations from local farmers; one volunteer created a campaign for farmers called “Add a hen for LTN.” The volunteer also checks every egg for cracks and defects to ensure safety before the food pantry gives them away.
In 2025, Love Thy Neighbor started a garden and grew produce, including 200 pounds of tomatoes, for the patrons. Boxes of food in front of the food pantry offer produce that farmers will fill in the spring, summer and fall. The box is available 24/7 for community members to fill and increase food access for everyone.
Community support beyond food
Love They Neighbor Food Pantry started in 2014, and it’s been in its current location for two years. Barrett has been involved with the food pantry for three years and took over as co-director in 2024. One of her driving forces for providing healthy food is her own experience. Barrett’s mom died from a dietary-related health condition, and she wants to help members of her community manage such conditions.
Aside from providing food and basic toiletries, Love Thy Neighbor has become a place for community members to find support for their overall health. The volunteers provide pamphlets and help find health care in the area.
“People come to us as a resource,” Barrett said. “We’re becoming a resource hub. Food opens the door. It’s a good way of saying ‘what else is going on?’”
Love Thy Neighbor food pantry also offers hats and gloves, which patrons have knitted and donated, and a seed pantry to help with home gardens. The food pantry has healthy cookbooks and nutrition classes focused on topics such as heart health and Type 2 diabetes.
In the summer, a local family came to take a class on nutrition, and Barrett got to engage with them. The child got to spend time picking vegetables in the garden. About five months later, the woman shared her A1C levels are down and she’d lost weight.
“I was really, really touched,” Barrett said. “She just had this whole journey of everything good that she felt she learned from the nutrition class.”
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has a mission to increase access and enhance the quality of care for every Michiganian. Through the 20 years of the Strengthening the Safety Net grant program, we have invested more than $17 million into safety net clinics, improved patient outcomes and kept people from expensive emergency room visits, which lower health care costs for everyone. Blue Cross has reduced the number of unnecessary emergency room visits by 400,000 and saved the health care system $200 million by helping patients avoid unnecessary emergency room visits.
Learn more about how Blue Cross is making health care more affordable here.
Image: Getty Images
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