Mike Wolanin | The Republic Laura Hack, from left, director of elementary education for Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation, applauds as Schmitt Elementary Principal Kaity Day and Rev. Aelred Dean cut a ribbon to celebrate the opening of the Personal Item Pantry at St. Paul’s Episcopal Chuch in Columbus, Ind., Friday, Oct. 24, 2025. The church celebrated opening the pantry on Friday morning. Church members collaborated with officials at Schmitt Elementary to create a pantry that will provide clothing and personal hygiene items to students at the school.
In a partnership between St. Paul’s Episcopal Church and Lillian Schmitt Elementary School, a former classroom and kitchen space within the church has been transformed into a personal items pantry for students of the school and their families.
The space opened at the start of the school year after a two year development period. An official ribbon cutting was held Friday morning with refreshments.
“Part of the mission of the church is not just to spread the gospel of Christ, but to be a good neighbor where we’re at,” St. Paul pastor Aelred Dean said during the ribbon cutting. “And so, with (BCSC Director of Health Services) Kelli Thompson and so many, St. Paul’s is becoming the good neighbor for our community.”
A majority of the pantry’s inventory comes from Schmitt Elementary’s donation closet that they outgrew, but parishioners and Dean also supplied some of the items. The pantry houses clothing items, hygiene products and laundry products, as well as toys and backpacks.
Seasonal items including coats, gloves and hats are available in the space. There’s also a shelf with free books for students to take home.
“It’s wonderful,” Principal Kaity Day said about the space. “It is a large enough space to fit items that we aren’t able to easily store, but items that could really benefit families like air mattresses or larger blanket sets or some of those home, hygiene or cleaning products that we just don’t have enough space at Schmitt to store.”
How it works is after identifying a student’s need, Schmitt Elementary School teachers and administrators will go to the pantry and get whatever items they may need. Families also can be accompanied to the pantry when appropriate.
A running inventory is kept on a shared spreadsheet to identify what has been taken and what can be restocked. Day said they would love to have more household items such as space heaters, blankets and air mattresses as they enter the winter season, but they will always take books.
“I think there could be even some donations of family card games and family board games, things to help our families be interactive and supportive,” Day said. “That’s an item that isn’t going to make any sort of necessity list, but (it’s) still very important to childhood development at the house.”
St. Paul’s and Schmitt Elementary have been mutually partnering together for about 10 years now, Day said. Whenever donations or volunteers are needed, she said St. Paul’s has always stepped up, and in a way to give back to the community, teams of students go over to the church at least twice a year to help out there.
The church had also applied for a grant from the diocese of Indianapolis’ Church Buildings for Collaborative Partnerships fund. Dean said they wanted to utilize this grant, but they were unsure of what they could do with it. When they spoke to their neighbors at Schmitt, they suggested a personal item pantry.
Using money from the grant, as well as donations from the Amy Roth family and support from St. Paul’s parishioners, the church was able to refurbish the entire basement space into the pantry. Dean said he loves how the space turned out, and in the future, he’d love to coordinate the pantry with Northside Junior High and Columbus North High School.
“But that’s still down the road,” Dean said. “But I like what we’re doing and I love how it looks. It doesn’t look like a junk place, it looks organized and clean.”
People can donate to the space, but Dean said they are mostly looking for monetary donations at the moment so they can be flexible in what they can purchase. They can donate new or gently used and washed items to the space by contacting St. Paul’s and coordinating a drop-off with them.
