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Community Corner

Operation Food Search Feeds Thousands in St. Charles County

Group coordinates with other organizations to make a bigger impact.

As community outreach director for the local Operation Food Search, Karen Gladieux goes a long way to retain a good volunteer. She recalls one in particular from some years ago.

“My boss at that time emphasized how great this volunteer was and that we’d do anything to keep him,” she said.

The solution was simple enough.

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“I married him,” she said with a chuckle.

Operation Food Search may have given Gladieux her husband Denny, but she has done a few things for the 30-year-old nonprofit as well. After moving to Lake Saint Louis, Gladieux, 52, left the University City office, and the couple created a branch of the organization on this side of the Missouri River in 2008. By late last year, it had resettled from an initial Wentzville location to a 15,000 square-foot warehouse in O’Fallon where it assists as many as 25,000 individuals with basic needs across St. Charles, Lincoln and Warren counties.

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About half those people are children, said Gladieux. On Tuesday, she stood surrounded by about two dozen kids in the LINC Family Learning Center off Mexico Road in Wentzville. It’s here that Gladieux is able to do a feeding program for about 30 to 40 low-income children who drop by for a meal and some playtime.

“For a lot of these kids, this is their activity for the summer,” she said. “A lot of them aren’t going to go to Disneyworld or any of those places, so this is a place where they can come for a couple of hours a day, have some fun, be with their friends and get a good lunch.”

Anna Fraizer, who lives nearby, agrees. She said the program helps her to stretch a dollar in feeding her two children, 11-year-old Chala and 5-year-old King. She’s been using the program for seven years.

“I think it’s a great program. They feed the kids, give them activities to do,” said the 30-year-old. Fraizer receives disability payments and said it can be hard to afford food. “It’s good to have people who are so loving, caring and nurturing for the kids.”

For Jackie Kubik, the Wentzville program feeds a different kind of hunger—the desire to help others. Kubik has volunteered her time her for two years and even brings her husband, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren along to cook and dispense the food.

“I love serving other people,” said the Lake Saint Louis resident. “That has been one of my passions for years.”

Some people are both recipients and volunteers.

Debbie Maris, 54, another Wentzville resident, said she thinks it’s good that the kids have activities to do and can get healthy, nutritious food that is often too expensive for low-income individuals to purchase. Maris, who makes a living doing at-home child care, said her income can be very unstable. So for two years, she’s been a volunteer with the program while her 14-year-old daughter Mandi has enjoyed the lunches.

“They have a place where they can come and have safe, good recreation as well as have a balanced meal,” Maris said.

However important it is, the Wentzville program is only a small part of what Operation Food Search does. Most of its work has been through supplying 30 area food pantries. About 600 cases of nonperishables move through the O’Fallon distribution center each Monday.

There’s also an Operation Backpack program that supplies bags of food to about 200 children in Wentzville who have been identified by teachers, principals and social workers as being potentially in need.

Gladieux said that the plan is to expand that initiative to O’Fallon this fall by setting it up in the thanks to a partnership with the , one of a number of groups with which Operation Food Search coordinates. In O’Fallon, the organization has been involved with the local Rotary Club and events such as the recent .

Operation Food Search also does other initiatives, such as the Third Annual Jubilee Food Drive. Set for July 30, the drive will feature more than 1,000 volunteers at every Schnucks, Dierbergs and Walmart in St. Charles County. Last year, more than 110,000 items were collected in the drive, which encourages shoppers to pick up a few extra things for the needy while in the store.

“St. Charles County is extremely unique in how organizations work together,” she said. “There’s a lot of cooperation between organizations on both the profit and nonprofit side. Community support is very strong in this area.”

Gladieux said that with the fallout of the recession still exerting a strong influence, the need has never been greater.

“Especially over the past year, we’ve seen so many people who have never been to a food pantry before,” she said. “It’s the first time they’ve ever had to go and get assistance, so we’re seeing a whole new population because of the economy.”

It’s also not just those on food stamps or other assistance programs. Some families are finding themselves squeezed into a hole in the social safety net.

“I think that’s what people are very surprised about,” she said. “A lot of the services that we provide are for that bubble right on top of poverty level. It’s people that can’t qualify for food stamps or subsidized housing but yet they can’t make ends meet.”

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