Butler library adds food to its community offerings
Some materials at the Butler Area Public Library don’t have to be returned.
And although the food items that populate the locker in the entrance of the library are free for anyone to take, they get replaced by other users of the library who donate money or food itself to the project.
The library received a grant from the Butler Collaborative for Families in June that provided $3,000 to start a food pantry. A few hundred dollars of that grant went toward buying a shelf for the pantry, while the rest went toward supplying food and paper goods for it.
Peter Bess, assistant director of the Butler Area Public Library, said the project came from the idea the library could provide an additional service to people who already visit for warmth or to cool off.
“Most people think churches have pantries, but we are also a place where people can come in and there is no expectation of someone to buy something to hang around,” Bess said. “We have a lot of people who, if they don’t have a place to go, they come here. We thought, ‘What’s another need we could help supplement for those people?’”
The food pantry has many of the items commonly found in help boxes or other food banks in the area — granola bars, macaroni and cheese, fruit snacks, applesauce and plenty of nonperishable canned foods. Bess said some money that funds the pantry has even been used to buy can openers so people have something to use to open the canned soups and foods.
While the initial $3,000 provided a solid base for the library to found the pantry and stock it up, Bess said further donations are what has kept it going. They have allowed him to buy enough food to refill the locker every day the library is open. The extra food and paper products are kept in a closet on the second floor. It is filled with backup stock that Bess brings to the locker each morning.
“Almost every day we’ll have people dropping off food for us,” he said on Tuesday, Dec. 30.
Emily Snow, vice cochairwoman of the Butler Collaborative for Families for 2025, said at the Holiday Huddle the collaborative receives money through its connection with the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. The money from that connection allowed the collaborative to create a new minigrant, in addition to the other minigrant which it funds through membership dues.
“There was a stipend that was provided to the Butler Collaborative for Families,” Snow said at the collaborative’s annual Holiday Huddle in December. “We then took that stipend and gave it right back into the community and Peter has been able to operate the little free pantry.”
Becky Clouse, cochairwoman of the Butler Collaborative for Families for 2025, said one of the collaborative’s committees tracks food security and the need for food in different areas of Butler County. The Pittsburgh food bank has helped target the areas in need of food for improvement, including through supplying stock for a food distribution the collaborative started around Parker in 2025.
“We do a lot of strategic planning, like looking where the needs are,” Clouse said. “They started a whole new food distribution in the Parker area. That was one example of the ways Pittsburgh Food Bank ended up helping.”
Clouse, who is no longer the cochairwoman of the collaborative in 2026 but remains active in the organization, said the Pittsburgh food bank will once again provide funding to the group this year, which again may be put directly toward a food security project.
“There is a stipend this year,” she said. “It's a lesser amount but it's still significant and it could help someone start something up or sustain a specific program.”
The Butler Area Public Library scored another big donation from the Butler Elks, which gave more than 10 agencies $10,000 donations in December as part of its holiday giving. According to Bess, the Elks asked that half that money be used to fund the library food pantry.
Additionally, a gaming guild based in Butler, Circle of Swords, made a $1,000 donation to the library, a sum that will also be put toward the food project, Bess said.
“Already for 2026, we have the $6,000 set aside to run the food pantry,” Bess said. “And we are just continually doing the food drive.”
The continued contributions into a project that already received funding is a good sign to Clouse and Snow.
“It just shows the way our community can work together. Instead of working against each other we're all working together,” Clouse said. “It's kind of heartwarming that people have these ideas.”
Bess said the library staff aim to keep the food pantry “unobtrusive,” to patrons, but easy enough to notice for the people who need food and those who might want to donate to it. The library also has bins in the lobby where people can drop off items whenever they want.
Bess said he thinks the pantry will be particularly useful to people who use the library as a place of refuge.
“I’m so excited to have it, especially in the summer when people come in to cool off,” Bess said.
He added that as a community hub, it makes sense for the library to have food, and it was one thing the Butler Area Public Library was missing to supply to its patrons.
“The library is where people can go to get books and knowledge,” Bess said. “Now we can be a small part of the effort that helps them get food.”
