Ishpeming resident and grandmother Brenda recalled a time when she was a teenager and she was driven by the belief of all that she could accomplish.
“I went out in life thinking, instead of, ‘What can I do?,’ I thought, ‘What can’t I do?’” she said. “I diversified, I ended up with fiver majors, my mom taught me how to test out of classes.”
Brenda has spent her life living up to that belief. She belonged to the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce because she had multiple businesses and a rental property. She has worked several different jobs in the past, including running a real estate office out of her home. She even possessed a CDL license and had a home on Cobb Lake that was completely paid for.
Things changed in 2006 after an incident left her with a broken back.
Since then, she has persisted through several challenges, including identity theft, periods of homelessness, and now reliance on a walker in order to get around. She and her granddaughter live solely off of her disability check and $120 of food stamps while she struggles to get her granddaughter’s Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
These last few years, mobile food pantries like the one held at North Iron Church in Ishpeming have been invaluable. Brenda enjoys the access to fresh produce, things like apples, pears, oranges, and even oyster mushrooms in the past.
“Oh, it’s just huge, especially in these times,” she said. “For two people living on one disability check, I only get 1$20 worth of food stamps and it’s going to go down next month. This program is just becoming more and more essential for more and more people. For us, it’s critical.”
North Iron Church Mobile Food Pantry coordinator Annie Trudell has played a role in food distribution for 20 years, back when it was held at the local VFW hall. Several locations and distribution methods later, the mobile has become an efficient means of providing nutritious foods like potatoes, asparagus, grapes, pears, cottage cheese, apples, cucumbers, and breakfast sausage for the hundreds of neighbors that regularly attend.
“The job situation is not steady,” Annie said of the community’s immediate need. “We have miners here, but a lot of times, the mines are shut down because of repairs and breakdowns. Sometimes they’ll shut down for a whole summer. When school is out, the kids are home and they need food.”
The mobile receives the assistance of organizations like two local churches, the VFW, Gauthier Insurance Company, and the local United Way. The volunteers always ensure that anybody who attends this distribution never goes without. This includes delivering to homebound neighbors.
Annie said their distributions are often filled with what she calls “God moments, where things come together perfectly.”
In one such moment, a woman came to the distribution for the first time with several little kids, Annie said. The woman mentioned it was her son’s birthday, so Annie and the other volunteers went to check if they had any donated baked goods. They found a really nice sheet cake and brought it over to the car while singing happy birthday for the boy.
At a distribution on June 4, 2026, Annie and a team of volunteers provided boxes of food and moments of joy to 252 households, consisting of 485 individuals. Feeding America West Michigan is endlessly grateful to organizations like The United Way of Marquette County, which help make these mobile distributions possible across the Upper Peninsula.