Pantry Podcast

This month I talk to Ryan Rasmussen, who became the Executive Director of the Oshkosh Area Community Pantry in February of this year. We discuss his accomplishments during his first 6 months on the job as well as his vision and goals for the future.

This month on the Pantry Podcast I interview Mike Lueder, the currently OACP Board Chair and the Interim Director of the Center for Civic and Community Engagement at University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. We discuss his long history of organizing volunteers for the OACP, as well as the Pantry’s new strategic goals and plans for the future.

My interviewee this month is Dr. Tracy Slagter from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. As a political scientist, she was excited to share her knowledge about government subsidized food programs. In addition, students from her course, The Politics of Food, volunteer at the pantry each spring.

This month, I interview Dr. Gabe Loiacono, a history professor at UW Oshkosh. He shares knowledge about the history of humanitarian aid in the United States. Students from his course, Charity & Memory from Medieval England to New Deal U.S., volunteer at the pantry every semester as part of their community engagement initiative. He also discusses his recently published book, How Welfare Worked in the Early United States: Five Microhistories.

This month's interview is with Steve Vickman, who was the first Executive Director of the OACP. He talks about the history of the pantry and how it came together in 2008. He shares stories about the many people and volunteers that came together to make the OACP a reality, as well as some meaningful lessons he learned along the way.

**Some of the audio for this interview had to be re-recorded due to technical difficulties, so there are a few sections that have a different sound quality than the rest of the interview.