Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
There will be an open house to honor Roz Morgan from noon to 2 p.m. Oct. 18 in the Sacred Heart School gym.
There will be a light lunch and tribute.
Cheryl Zale, Our Father’s Pantry manager, said it will be a thank you for the work Morgan has done for the community.
Morgan founded Our Father’s House. She said the limited liability corporation (LLC) for Our Father’s House was approved in December 1996 or 1997. Morgan said if she made a list of all the people that helped make Our Father’s House happen, it would be a huge list.
“It was founded on the premise to serve the needs of the poor as a right rather than a privilege. It is never a privilege for somebody to be allowed to eat,” she said. There was so much food and other items thrown into dumpsters “and I just thought we could take those things that people no longer want and turn them into something that other people could use. And that basically is how it started. We started collecting clothing and furniture and housewares and many refrigerators. I just about killed (Drew Krichbaum, who was described as Morgan’s right-hand man) with two grand pianos,” she said.
For 20 years, Morgan said if she needed something done, she turned to Krichbaum to ask if they could get it done and he’d say yes. And they succeeded a lot, Zale said.
Our Father’s started on Center Street, then moved to Argonne Road before moving to Winona Avenue.
Zale said it wasn’t just a pantry. Our Father’s House also served warm meals. Morgan said they served meals four days a week in their eat-in dining room.
Zale said, for people who really went in for a warm meal, “it was like going to a restaurant. They sat down, they were waited on, they were treated like they were going to the most rich restaurant in town. And it was awesome.”
Morgan said if there was food left, a lot of times, it went out the door with the families. Zale said she went for a warm meal one time with her mother and said there was so much food. Afterward, she was talking to Morgan about that and Morgan said it may be the only meal the people who came for the meal got that day.
Morgan said when she decided to start Our Father’s House, she needed an inventory to start with. She talked about salvaging carpet racks from a business that went out of business and buying ragbags.
Morgan said they started with milk and bread, expanding from there. Kentucky Fried Chicken was the first restaurant that signed up to give leftovers to Our Father’s House.
The fact Our Father’s House got open was a miracle, she said.
She talked about the struggles Our Father’s House had, including things breaking. Krichbaum said they’d be doing all the work for Our Father’s House and working their catering business on top of that to fund everything.
“God is good and as soon as you doubt, He provides,” Morgan said. “You rest in knowing that if you need it, you’ll have it. And if you don’t have it, it’s because you don’t need it. And that works. That’s always worked for us. And then you can go home at night.”
When asked how many people were helped over the years with Our Father’s House, Morgan said she was looking through some records and the books Our Father’s House had for their vouchers were carbonized copies. She noticed there were 11 of the books that were completely full.
Krichbaum said when they think about it, on a certain day, Our Father’s House was giving away free clothing, furniture, food and meals “all in one day.”
Zale said people will come into Our Father’s Pantry and ask about Morgan and say they saved their lives or helped them with something.
“I mean the stories just go on and on about how many people she’s touched,” Zale said.
“Countless utility bills paid. Rent, medical services, we could talk about it for a week,” Krichbaum said.
“If one thing both of them taught me is that you just don’t judge,” Zale said, with Morgan adding you can’t. “You just help them the best way you can,” Zale said.
Morgan said if she could sum up Our Father’s House, she would say it was a dream that never turned into a nightmare and “it was a gift, not to other people, but to me because on the road that I walked, I met some of the most incredible people and the most caring people that would do anything for people that didn’t know. And when you start out to serve the needs of people that you’ve never met before and that you might never meet again and you do that with an open house, that’s what Our Father’s House was. It was going home. That’s why it was called Our Father’s House.”
She added everyone should have that.
Zale said there were probably a million times that people were helped and Morgan knew Our Father’s House had helped those people.
Krichbaum said that’s what was the best thing about it was trying to helping someone every day.
Morgan said there were customers that would sit probably about 20 minutes and talk to people.
Zale said one of the things Our Father’s House started that was continued was giving out a Thanksgiving meals, giving everything a person needed including a frozen turkey. Another thing Morgan tried to do was handing out school supplies. Zale said there are a lot of places that do that now, so they didn’t continue handing out supplies.
“But, boy, was it a big deal when you did it,” Zale said. Morgan said she thought Our Father’s House was one of the first places to start handing out school supplies. Krichbaum said they would also give out back-to-school clothes.
“So basically, if there was a need, the met it at the time,” Zale said.
“Whatever we could do,” Morgan said, adding it was a collective of people who wanted to change, even momentarily, someone’s life to make it a little bit more comfortable.
