EAST CHAIN – Ruby’s Pantry, which operated 87 locations across the upper Midwest, announced early this week that it would be closing effective immediately.

This includes the location in East Chain, which was featured in Tuesday’s edition of the Sentinel. The article by Vanessa Schultze stated East Chain was attended by 100-300 people each month, and the location was preparing for an increase in attendees after Ruby’s Pantry in Sherburn closed in February.

The East Chain location had already planned its next distribution for April 25 and had announced an increase in price per food bundle from $25 to $30 due to climbing transportation costs.

East Chain Site Coordinator Matt Bauer said inklings of what was going to happen only began to trickle in on Tuesday morning.

“I am part of a site leaders Facebook group,” he said. “A few people had gotten emails about closing, but I hadn’t. We had had a distribution Saturday, and everything seemed normal. I logged everything in like normal. We found out that due to trucking issues, others were cancelled. I didn’t know what was going on, honestly.”

The closure was then confirmed by Ruby’s Pantry’s public announcement Tuesday night. Learning of this left Bauer stunned.

“I thought it was a sick April Fools’ joke,” he said. “This just couldn’t be, it was very shocking. I tried to reach out to corporate, and everyone’s phones were shut off. People are reaching out to me about it, and it’s being slowly confirmed by others. To be directly communicated to by corporate would have been better on my side. Some site leaders got an email yesterday morning, but I was not one.”

East Chain’s Ruby’s Pantry had been open for 11.5 years and done 135 distributions. Bauer said they would like to continue the impact of Ruby’s in the area, but it is too soon to say whether they will be able to bring a food service of their own. Overall, he said the work they did with Ruby’s Pantry was very rewarding.

“It’s always fun to receive, but it is a bigger blessing to give, especially when you can see how grateful people are and happy to see us. We have been told many times how loving and welcoming our location has been.”

As the closure of Sherburn’s Ruby’s Pantry was slated to have an effect on the East Chain location, Fairmont food shelves have also been put on alert of potential rising attendance with the closure of Ruby’s Pantry as a whole.

Heaven’s Table Board Chair Greta Lintelman said she was saddened when she heard.

“It was a good opportunity for people to gather and get an opportunity to pick up some food at a lesser cost,” she said.

The shelves had worked together before. Lintelman said the East Chain location had donated excess food to Heaven’s Table for a time, which they were happy to have.

“Sometimes they had excess bread, and sometimes they had excess canned products or bottled products.”

Information for Ruby’s Pantry was also kept on hand at Heaven’s Table to refer others to. With two food shelf options having gone down in the last two months, Heaven’s Table is making sure they have a good supply on hand.

“We get freight on a weekly basis now,” Lintelman said. “We have the opportunity to react faster than we did in the past, because it was every two weeks. We’ve been collecting food for March here, and we have a lot of donations that have come in this past month, so we’re in good shape to take on additional people.”

Salvation Army Area Manager Krystal Stover said that, like Heaven’s Table, Ruby’s Pantry had helped them in the past through food donations. In the wake of the closure, Stover said they are also planning to try to source more food.

“I think it was a lifeline to a lot of community members,” she said. “It helped greatly within our community, and it will be greatly missed.”

Bauer said they will be posting a statement to the Ruby’s Pantry East Chain Facebook page at facebook.com/rubyspantryeastchain/.