‘Take What You Need, Leave What You Can,’ SNAP Benefit Freeze Inspires Local Mom Cassandra Ortega’s Little Free Pantry

In times of crisis, it is not uncommon to find American communities willing to work together. Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, “One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals.” That principle is personified in the efforts of Milwaukee resident Cassandra Ortega as she runs the Little Free Pantry on Milwaukee’s south side. 

Little Free Pantry

Ortega’s pantry resembles the model of the “little free libraries” you may see when frequenting some neighborhoods. Except, in Ortega’s cabinet, you’re going to find canned foods, deodorant and even tampons before you find any John Steinbeck novels.

In recent days, a historically long government shutdown led to stalled paychecks and halted Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, threatening to capsize the budgets of millions of working-class Americans. The shutdown has since ended but the stress on American families remains.

A surge in the need for grassroots food assistance made headlines as Americans watched long lines stretch out the doors of food shelters across the country; some of these lines even decorated by uniformed members of the armed services. 

Media Milwaukee received a statement from Hunger Task Force of Milwaukee regarding the increasing need for their food assistance.

“Local need in Milwaukee has increased 35 percent since the start of the year,” said Jonathan Hansen, chief strategy officer of Hunger Task Force. “Hunger Task Force serves over 50,000 people each month across all of its programs. During the government shutdown and delay of SNAP benefits, visits to food pantries doubled.”

In this abrupt gap between need and access, Ortega found her inspiration to begin the Little Free Pantry.

Growing up in south Milwaukee and living now on the south side of the city with her husband and two children, Ortega set out to begin filling in the gaps.

“It started off with just a Rubbermaid bin out front with a sign that said ‘take what you need, leave what you can,’” said Ortega. “I funded it myself; with $75 I went to Aldi and bought a bunch of stuff.”

What started as a small way for Ortega to give back shortly attracted the attention of her neighbors, who began supplementing the food pantry with their own donations.

“It quickly took off,” continued Ortega, “I had people leaving food items, but then I also had people start leaving personal hygiene items and then home cleaning supplies. So then I had two Rubbermaid bins. I needed something more permanent, so now we have a pantry.”

Ortega does not engage in this sort of outreach work professionally; she received a bachelor’s degree in finance and works in leadership and development for a regional credit union. 

“I had seen one of my girlfriends in Caledonia, she did a free pantry,” explained Ortega, “I had always wanted to do one of the little libraries. I’ve always loved the idea of ‘oh, if you’re walking by and you need something, grab it.’”

Once set up, Ortega began reaching out to spread awareness of her pantry, but that turned into acquaintances reaching out to find out how they could help.

“I started by putting it on a couple of local Facebook groups,” said Ortega, “I was just putting it out there as ‘there’s this food opportunity if you need it,’ but so many people started donating: friends, people I went to high school with I haven’t talked to in 15 years, parents of friends from high school. All these people started asking how they could support.”

It is at this point that the momentum of Ortega’s initiative began to grow beyond her initial mission. This is when the pantry began to resemble the assorted abundance it stands in today.

“We put together an Amazon Wishlist of items I had seen become popular over the last week,” said Ortega. “All of a sudden, Amazon was coming to our house three or four times a day, leaving mounds of packages, and not a single one was for me.”

Many of these packages began to flow in from names Ortega didn’t recognize; from areas far outside her zip code.

The generosity also proceeds in real time. During the literal writing of this story, Ortega reached out to Media Milwaukee to share that members of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Diverse-Occupational Therapy student organization had donated over 760 items, including baby items, hand warmers and even blankets.

More than just ravioli

What began to strike Ortega was the value held by donated items that weren’t food at all.

“I was not expecting the response for the personal hygiene products,” pondered Ortega. “It makes sense with all the high school students.”

Here, Ortega is referring to the local Ronald Reagan High School.

Ortega became strategic with how she put these sort of items on the shelf in order to help those who needed them.

“I was putting pads and tampons in a ziplock bag—about what a day’s worth would be—and they would immediately be gone.”

What started as a way to help bring small items to neighbors in need quickly became a snapshot into the struggle of everyday Americans.

“There are times when an Amazon delivery driver would pull up and I would tell them to grab anything from the pantry they need,” said Ortega. “I would watch as they just slowly walk over and grab maybe some toothpaste, or deodorant and I would think to myself ‘if people working these kinds of jobs need help to make ends meet, then people are really struggling,’ and that’s a shame.”

Here, Ortega touches on a point that often goes unstated in the discussion surrounding SNAP benefits: many recipients of SNAP are working-class families. 

According to the United States Census Bureau, of the nearly 85 million families who received SNAP benefits in the year 2024, over 25 million had at least one worker in the last 12 months and over 46 million had at least two. The median household income of a SNAP recipient in the year 2024 was over $81,000. 

When SNAP benefits recede, millions of working-class families feel the pressure. 

However, amidst the recession of assistance, some families still fight to find a silver lining. 

“When they reduce my SNAP benefits, it hurts, but it also motivates me to focus on my goals,” said Christina Campbell, a legal assistant in Milwaukee and mother of seven. “It makes me focus on how I can get out of a position to need this help anymore.” 

Empathy: the glue holding it all together 

Whether stacking cans of tuna or packaging a day’s supply of tampons, Ortega keeps a sense of empathy at the forefront of her outreach.

“We are not SNAP recipients, but as a mom, I would never want to be put in a position where I am choosing between paying a bill, going to the doctor, or getting a tank of gas and putting a meal on our table,” said Ortega.

The pantry’s inventory is far from plateaued, and though the government has since re-opened and the threat of halted benefits has lifted, the need to help one another remains.

So, too, does the Little Free Pantry.

In spite of the tumultuous political landscape, the outpouring of generosity has re-instilled the importance of community in Ortega. She emphasized how selflessly others have been willing to give just to ensure people they may never meet have some of their most basic needs fulfilled.

“To me it is so overwhelmingly generous how some people have been,” said Ortega. “There have been times where I have had to guess some people have spent more than $100, and these are people I don’t even know. I think that is really the epitome of the community coming together not for themselves but for the greater good.”

The Little Free Pantry can be found at 4863 S. 21st St.