A generous donation will help a Nevada nonprofit fight food insecurity.

Ames Bottle and Can has donated monthly to local nonprofits for nearly three years, giving away more than $11,000.

Their most recent donation was a $1,100 check to Nevada Community Cupboard on Tuesday, an organization that provides food and some personal items to Story County residents in need.

Ames Bottle and Can donates to a specific nonprofit organization each month, using money from recycling and residential donations to help fund the initiative. The Community Cupboard was chosen as December’s recipient.

The Community Cupboard and the Redemption Center connected thanks to the vision of ABC employee Ron Brodie. His mother serves on the Nevada Community Cupboard’s board of directors.

Brodie saw a group in need and acted, noting how food can often be scarce during the coldest part of the year.

“I knew the winter months are harder to get food donations for the cupboard,” Brodie said. “When COVID-19 started, there was an influx in families coming for food and it just hasn’t gone back down after that point.”

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Ames Bottle and Can seeks to serve its community

ABC opened on Dec. 1, 2022 at 5820 Lincoln Way, Suite 106. Co-owners Burger and Jay Vaughn were inspired by the changes to Iowa’s bottle bill, which increased handling fees for redemption centers. They also noticed that Ames lacked a redemption center, a perfect opportunity to support their home county.

“We have lived in Story County our entire lives,” Vaughn said. “We want to make sure that we’re giving back to Story County as a whole, the county that helped raise us.”

Locals can recycle cans and bottles at the center, where ABC sorts and distributes them to recycling companies. Burger said some people simply want to recycle their bottles and cans and don’t care about the monetary reward, which helps pad the donation fund.

“Our customers who come in and don’t care about getting the payment themselves and just want to see their cans recycled can donate to the monthly non-profit,” Burger said. “We keep a running total of how many cans and bottles have been donated over the course of that month, then write a check at the end of the month.”

The nonprofit of the month program started when the redemption center opened and has quickly surpassed $11,200 in donations.

“We were service-oriented from the beginning, so (the program) kind of went hand in hand with that,” Burger said. “There are so many great organizations in the area; this is a way that we could give back to them.”

ABC has already selected the nonprofits it will donate to in 2024, which includes the Ames Elementary PTO, the Ames History Museum, Friends of the Ledges, Story County Theatre Company and several other organizations in Boone, Story and Polk County.

ABC is taking donation applications for 2025 now.

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Community cupboard battles high grocery prices

Located at 1110 11th Street, Nevada Community Cupboard has served rural Story County for more than 30 years. The board of directors is comprised of one member from each of Nevada’s churches, while the facility itself is open from 10-11:30 a.m. on Saturdays.

The nonprofit aims to end hunger by welcoming any resident of Story County.

“We’re a community cupboard for people in need of groceries,” Board Member Kenzie Alderson said. “We’re not going to provide it all, but we help with those things.”

The nonprofit uses its in-house funds and donations to purchase groceries through the Food Bank of Iowa.

The Community Cupboard has noticed an uptick in residential traffic as grocery prices have risen in recent years. Board member Teresa Haaland said prices rose when the COVID-19 pandemic arrived in 2020 and haven’t decreased since, motivating the shelter to provide more for families in need.

She’s appreciative of Ames Bottle and Can’s genoristy, knowing the $1,100 will help feed several local families.

“Because of the increase of grocery prices, we really need (ABC’s donation) because we’ve got an increase in families,” Haaland said. “We used to give visitors a gift card from Fareway for $7 every four weeks they came, but because of the lack of being able to get things like eggs and milk we upped it to $10.”

Nevada Community Cupboard’s role has only increased since the pandemic, and volunteers are dedicated to keep one of the few local food pantries in operation.

Celia Brocker is a government, crime, political and education reporter for the Ames Tribune. She can be reached at CBrocker@gannett.com.