Column: Diane Renner retires after 14 years leading Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry in Aurora

When I called a string of people who have been such a vital part of the Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry in Aurora, each one expressed some version of “I don’t know where to begin” when I asked about what their retiring leader has meant to this nonprofit.

Diane Renner is stepping down on Friday after 14 years as executive director of the beloved pantry started by Aurora matriarch and social rights advocate Marie Wilkinson more than 70 years ago.

To say Renner will be missed is an understatement. To say she can be replaced is a question mark.

Renner has not only vastly improved and expanded the services of the pantry in her tenure, she did so in the true spirit of the late Marie Wilkinson – with passion, determination and a vision that always kept an eye on the mission to humbly and respectfully serve those in need.

“What she’s done is amazing,” said longtime volunteer Bonnie Wegman, who recalls the pantry as being in “disarray” when Renner, who had been a volunteer and board member, took over the leadership role in 2010 on a part-time basis that quickly grew in hours along with the number of people needing help.

The statistics say it all, insists volunteer and staffer Rebekah Axtell: When Renner started there were 80 guests using the pantry per week, now there are 1,100.

Axtell described Renner back then as “a one-woman show,” who would clean and organize the warehouse, drive the food rescue truck, train new volunteers, teach herself new software, write grants and organize fundraising committees with an ability to “quickly adapt to challenges that was unparalleled.”

Kathy Ferrel, another passionate volunteer, lauded the way Renner could “go from zero to 100” and how she could ‘take a dollar and squeeze it like you could not believe,” in part because “she commits 100%  to what she does.”

To Renner, there was no choice.

When the initial facility on Highland began “bursting at the seams,” noted board member Brian Dolan, she led the first pantry expansion – purchasing the lot next door from the city at a nominal fee, which doubled the space and provided much-needed parking.

Under her leadership, Renner greatly extended the pantry’s reach, establishing satellite locations at East Aurora High School – which Dolan believes is the first of its kind in the state – as well as the Aurora VA Clinic, a Hispanic church on Fourth Street and Advocate’s cancer treatment center for patients too ill to make trips to the grocery store.

She also brought to completion the hugely successful Marie Wilkinson Community Garden across the street from the main facility – again, thanks to assistance from the city of Aurora – which has been a “a huge success,” as neighbors have learned how to grow and prepare their own food, added Dolan.

Also noteworthy, Renner guided the pantry through those complicated pandemic years, where the need for food assistance grew exponentially, and led to this current expansion that has temporarily moved the pantry to 922 N. Lake St. in Aurora.

This second renovation will allow the pantry to double its footprint, thanks to a grant through U.S. Rep. Bill Foster, D-Naperville, that will also fulfill another of Renner’s longtime goals – a community center where educational programs can be held for guests.

All the above, Dolan noted, are “examples of Diane’s abilities and skills at negotiation and working through the processes required to make things happen.”

None of which is possible, however, without an army of dedicated volunteers “she’s been able to attract and lead,” he added.

That’s because their retiring leader personifies the spirit of Marie Wilkinson, insisted Wegman, who has worked at the pantry long enough to recall the time the food rescue program involved only one grocery store and a van so dilapidated that boxes had to be arranged in such a way none would fall through the holes in the floor of the vehicle.

These days the Marie Wilkinson Food Pantry fleet includes two vans and a box truck that pick up 91,000 pounds of food from 40 stores.

“Diane just had this knack for finding contacts,” said Wegman, “and people were so happy to do things for her.”

That’s because she’s so willing to do for others, pointed out Rick Bill, volunteer and board member of the Kendall County Community Food Pantry.

When this Yorkville-based organization was in chaos after allegations of theft by its executive director and her shocking death soon after from a prescription drug overdose, “Diane was here the next day asking what she and Marie Wilkinson could do to help,” said Bill.

“It still chokes me up,” he told me. “That was Diane in a nutshell, forging friendships, working together with others. Her work ethic and compassion will be hard to replace.”

Those feelings are echoed by Ferrel, who noted that not only do the volunteers love her but so do the guests, some of whom she has personally helped, even bringing them on as employees.

“Diane is the face of the pantry … she will be missed,” said Ferrel.

The good news of course is that Renner is “leaving the pantry in a much better situation and place as when and where she found it,” insisted Dolan.

“To me, that is the goal every leader works to accomplish.”

Renner is moving to Vonore, Tennessee, just south of Knoxville, where she and husband Robin, who retired in 2018 as a teacher and IHSA Hall of Fame baseball coach for Neuqua Valley, have built a home.

Robin moved in June so Diane knew the “time had come” to say goodbye to the pantry she grew to love in a way only its founder would understand.

“I am proud of the way I was able to continue Marie’s legacy,” she told me. “I have loved every minute of what I have done.”

Which would have to include those frequent times Renner took off her executive hat to do whatever was necessary, including cleaning the bathrooms, noted Wegman.

In fact, it was during one of those janitorial gigs, she added, that “Diane discovered an old manuscript of Marie’s and got the wheels going” to turn those memoirs into the book “Gentle Spirit,” a copy of which she kept at her desk that was bursting with colored sticky notes marking special passages she would often refer to.

Kris Fox-Kellogg, who was on the board with Renner and a friend of the founder and her daughter Sheila, told me she began volunteering at the pantry because of those close ties to Marie “but stayed because of Diane.”

It was a phrase I heard more than once.

“Her dedication to Marie’s legacy and long hours, often seven days a week, have been an inspiration to me and many others,” said Fox-Kellogg. “Marie was no longer with us to choose Diane, but she is surely smiling down on her and saying thank you for a job well done.”

dcrosby@tribpub.com