Our friend Tina Sipula from the Clare House has announced she is retiring next month, and that the Clare House and Loaves & Fishes will be closing at that time.

Tina established Clare House 37 years ago when she saw a need in the community. She did this out of the love in her heart, the courage in her spirit and the belief no family should go hungry in our community.

20 years ago, Extreme Motors and our sister station B104 started an annual Holiday Food Drive to help Tina serve the community year round. Because of the YOUR generosity and the drive of Tina and her volunteers, that goal has been met each year for the past two decades.

Now, Tina has decided the time has come for her to retire from community service and focus on her family and personal life…and she has more than earned her personal time.

On a personal note (cause isn’t it really always about me?), I’ve worked in many different cities and with many different food banks, and when I started at WBNQ four years ago at the beginning of the annual food drive, it was immediately apparent that Clare House was different and much (most?) of the credit for that was due to Tina.

Please join WBNQ and all of us at Radio Bloomington in thanking Tina for all she has done for this community, for showing us how to care about every person in our community and for stepping up to help our friends and neighbors when the need is there.

Here is the press release Tina issued earlier today:

Clare House is Closing

After nearly 40 year of serving the Bloomington/Normal community, Clare House food pantry will close its doors after the traditional pre-Thanksgiving food distribution at 1:00 p.m., Wednesday, November 25, 2015.  Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen at St. Mary’s Church, an out-growth of Clare House, will serve its last meal on Tuesday, November 24 from 11:30-12:30.

“When we created Clare House as a part of the Catholic Worker Movement in December of 1978, few of us imagined it would, with the generous support of this community, serve so many people in so many ways over the parts of five decades,” said Tina Sipula, founder and director of the program.

Sipula says she is retiring.

Clare House and Loaves and Fishes are volunteer organizations with no paid staff. About 70 volunteers have selflessly served the many who have come to their doors in need, and some volunteers have been with the organization for decades.

Sipula emphasized that the closings do not reflect diminished community support.

“Year in and year out, the people of Bloomington/Normal and the surrounding communities have opened their hearts and pockets to us, enabling families to put food on their tables,” she said. “Regardless of the state of the national and local economies, people have been supportive.”

For the past 20 years, the “Annual Holiday Food Drive,” sponsored by Dan O’Brien and Extreme Motors, B104 and Radio Bloomington and Schnuck’s Supermarkets, has helped raise nearly 9 semi-truck loads of food each November to keep the Clare House doors open. Sipula expresses her gratitude for the talents, dedication and loving support of the many who have organized and volunteered to make each food drive an incredible success and for the thousands of people who have donated so generously over the years.

There are presently 12 food pantries operating in the Bloomington/Normal area, and Sipula hopes people will be supportive of them. It is her prayer that another church or organization will step up to open their doors to take on opening another soup kitchen.

Both Clare House and Loaves and Fishes will continue to operate, handing out food and serving noon meals until the closing dates. The last day they will accept donations is November 11. Clare House is not an IRS qualified 501 (c) (3) organization.