* Story of the pantry's closing prompted two benefactors to donate $5,000 each and a third to donate $6,000.
The New Hope Food Pantry in St. Charles, which had to close this week because it ran out of food and money, will reopen after getting $16,000 in donations Thursday.
After reading about the pantry's plight in the Post-Dispatch, Dr. Rashid Zia, an area psychiatrist, wrote the pantry a check for $6,000. After he spoke with his 18-year-old daughter, Maryam, about the pantry, she said she would write a check for $500.
Sheila and Gerry Ricken, who gave the pantry money last year when it was low on funds, wrote the pantry a check for $5,000 from their foundation. It's called Mary Beth's Angels, in honor of their 15-year old daughter, who died of brain cancer last year.
When Sheila Ricken dropped off her check from the foundation, she also gave the pantry another $5,000 from Funny Bone Comedy Clubs. Michael and Cathy Kohn and Jerry Kubach, the clubs' owners, wanted to help as well. Sheila Ricken and Cathy Kohn are sisters.
Mary Groeper, who started the pantry with her husband, Michael, in 1990, said this is the first time the pantry had to close. The pantry and the New Hope Thrift Shop are in Thoele Plaza on Highway 94, north of Highway 370.
Not only did it have to turn away about 120 people this week, it was about $4,500 behind in rent, Groeper said.
Dr. Zia came to the United States from Pakistan in 1976, and people have been good to him in his road to becoming a psychiatrist, he said. He did his residency at St. Louis University Hospital, and his daughter is in a pre-med program at SLU.
"I'm lucky and fortunate and people have done all sorts of good things for me," Zia said.
Zia said he was struck by the fact that such an organization could be crippled by such a relatively small problem like unpaid rent. "Forty-five hundred dollars in this city is nothing."
Sheila Ricken said she was honored to help the pantry.
"They're really good people and they're doing a really good thing there," she said.
Reporter Valerie Schremp:\ E-mail: vschremp@post-dispatch.com\ Phone: 636-946-3903 ext. 233