What are the details?

County supervisor Andy Berg developed the idea, soon joined by Kenosha Ald. Dominic Ruffalo, a member of the Garden of Eatin’ Board of Directors, Joe Cardinali, and Katy Wallner of Creatives for Kenosha.

• This event brought very different people together to help their community. Dominic Ruffalo, one of the first people to join in, said, “What better way to help the city move forward then have one conservative alderman and one strong democrat come together for the city of Kenosha.”

The plan was to gather enough food to fill the library of the Grace Lutheran Church and sleep outside until they could, they planned if they were able to make it in a day to see how many times they could fill it. Along with this the Grace Welcome center hoped to raise $4,500 to repair the roof.

• The goals for the event were to help the Grace Welcome Center help the community. By raising money to pay for a replacement of the Grace Lutheran Church’s roof they would also save money and could use the money saved to do more for our community. Along with donations from individuals, the Garden of Eatin’ donated produce to the Grace Welcome Center, a table quickly emptied.

By 10 a.m. the second day they had already raised $2,000 for the roof replacement as well as 2,000 pounds of food collected for the drive.

• Only half way through the event almost ⅖ of the money needed for roof replacement was donated, though by 8 p.m. they had raised over double the amount needed to replace the roof. At this time they had nearly filled the entire library with food donated by the community.

On top of in-person donations many local artists and crafters offered to donate some of their online sales for Freezin for a Reason event.

• These generous people help the Grace Welcome Center reach their goals for the roof replacement. After the goal had been reached the Grace Welcome Center stated that any money not used for the roof would be used to stock the food pantry.

On Tuesday of the event Barker had said “We’ve never taken in a food donation this big before, it’s just beyond imaginable. It really warms our hearts.” Due to the outcome of this event, groups had started to talk about making it an annual event.

• Thanks to the outcome of the event, helping raise over $10,000 for the Grace Welcome Center and filling the pantry, they began to speak about making it an annual drive, a decision later confirmed, with the 2022 Freezin for a Reason event.