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MIFFLINTOWN -- Wanted: Executive director.
Kathy Queitzsch, executive director of the Juniata County Food Pantry Inc., will retire from her position at the end of the year. The agency is now beginning its search for someone to take her place.
Queitzsch has served in the position since 2008, when the position was created during reorganization of the food pantry. Prior to that, she worked as a part-time assistant administrator.
In a press release announcing her retirement, Queitzsch said by the end of 2016, the pantry was serving an average of 350 families in need each month -- approximately 1,000 individuals -- nearly four times the number of families served during the pantry's founding year. She attributes the organization's success to "a lot of prayer and many, many miracles."
According to a timeline provided by Queitzsch, the pantry was founded in 1982 by four churches in the Mifflin-Mifflintown Ministerium: Messiah Lutheran, Westminster Presbyterian, Aldersgate Methodist and Trinity Methodist. Its purpose was to provide short-term food assistance during emergencies. The pantry served 89 families during its first 12 months.
On Jan. 17, 1986, the organization received its designation as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit.
The pantry experienced a number of highs and lows during the decades following that designation. It was relocated multiple times. Volunteers became scarce, amid other additional administrative concerns.
When Queitzsch was hired as a part-time assistant administrator in 2006, there had been no administrator in the facility for seven months. It took nearly two years to sort out the resulting administrative chaos, she said.
The pantry forged ahead. After reorganization, Queitzsch was named executive director and along with its board of directors, was charged with oversight of the pantry's functions.
In the years after her appointment, the organization again began to grow. The number of families it served continued to increase. The pantry moved into its permanent home, on Main Street in Mifflintown. Supplemental food programs were added to the pantry's services. A 16-foot box truck was brought to enable pickup of large donations. The building's roof was replaced.
This year, the pantry is able to replace its antiquated heating and cooling system. Queitzsch said the organization is also completing a project to turn part of the basement into a food-safe storage and work area. Administration is also hoping to extend services to area shut-ins who are unable to travel to the pantry for groceries.
In 2017, nine volunteers make up the board of directors. The pantry has three part-time staff members, in addition to its executive director, and an average of 50 volunteers per month.
"I am incredibly proud and exceedingly humble to have been a part of God's plan for the Juniata County Food Pantry for the past 11 years of its history, and I am perpetually blessed by the generosity of this community, the unselfish love and service of our many volunteers and by the smiles and tears of thankfulness from the neighbors that we serve," Queitzsch said in the release.
Queitzsch and her husband of 27 years, Chuck, have lived in Juniata County for 26 years. They have two children, Caitlin and Bryan, and are members of Trinity United Methodist Church in Mifflin. On Dec. 31, Queitzsch plans to join her husband in retirement.
"I am excited for the future of the food pantry's mission -- to serve God by fighting hunger, improving lives and strengthening our community -- under the direction of someone with fresh vision and energy," she said.
A full job listing for the position of executive director, including information about how to apply, is available today in The Sentinel's Classifieds section, pages C5-6.