Marty Lane grew up feeding people.
“In the words of Tupac, 'I didn’t choose this life; it chose me,'” she said.
Lane was born and raised in West Bloomington. Her grandfather ran a community garden behind Sunnyside Housing project, delivering food in pickle buckets gifted from Steak 'n Shake and hosting an annual Easter egg hunt.
“I grew up in this life of service with my grandfather. He was like my dad,” she said. “When he got sick and died in 1998, it was just right that we continued the Easter egg hunt. And it got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.”
Lane and her family, with a pack of helpers, have stocked their West Bloomington garage with food and other supplies since 1999. It’s called WYSE, an acronym for Westside Youth are Something Extraordinary.
It started with lunch and learns in Lane's backyard.
"Back in that time, in the early 2000s when all those people moved in from Chicago, there was a ton of new Black children on the West Side," she said. "All these boys were everywhere. Nobody was paying attention to them. They had no structure."
Lane's house became a hub for kids in the neighborhood.
"This is where all the kids were. You can come here if you want to, but you're gonna learn something," she said.
Lane said serving the community has kept her three children grounded and humble. They’re the muscle of WYSE these days. Lane is the face.
“I’ve always had a very well-paying job,” she said. “I’m educated. My husband the same, and we live right here in the ‘hood. We live in the ‘hood because we have to stay here—because our service is more important than our address. We can live anywhere in this town, but we’re here because we need to be here. We want to be here.”
WYSE is busy, serving up to 600 families a month. More came during COVID; even more during the government shutdown, when federal food assistance froze.
The pantry is open 24/7, 365 days a year, by appointment. And the rules are simple: Take what you need. No questions asked. Lock the door behind you.
“If you get to me, and you need food, I will feed you,” Lane said. “I don’t care what kind of car you drive. I don’t care what your address is. I don’t care what kind of house you have.
"You might have a Mercedes Benz. You might have had it for 15 years because when you got it, you were straight, and now you ain’t. It’s nobody’s business. We will fill your car up,” she said.
Concerned by the SNAP cuts last fall, a group of musicians came together to support WYSE, putting on a pay-what-you-can benefit show at The Bistro. Johnnie Owens, a Bloomington born-and-raised rapper and electronic musician who performs as M0j0, was part of the line-up.
Owens felt burdened by the 24-hour news cycle and connected with friends online, who encouraged her to do something small, local and tangible to help her community. She texted a bunch of musicians around Central Illinois and launched the Starving Artists initiative, a grassroots network of benefit shows.
One of the first people Owens reached out to was Bridget Lantz, a music promoter in Bloomington-Normal who jumped on board and helped Owens plan a November show at Meltdown Creative Works collecting donations for WYSE.
“This country’s going through a really hard time, and I think community-driven events and organizing of all mediums is so essential right now,” Lantz said.
After Meltdown, Owens showed up at WYSE with 10 bags of groceries and $75.
“…which doesn’t sound like a lot of money, but $75, I can buy like 12 pounds of protein,” Lane said. “I can serve 12 families. If you just get one pound of ground beef, that’s a pot of spaghetti.”
M0J0 headlines her next fundraiser Jan. 24 at the Coffeehouse in Normal, which also features Without a Tres, Maestro Jones, Fury, Elexen and Veo. Patrons get a $5 discount if they bring a donation for WYSE. Suggested items include toiletries, bottled water, canned goods, granola bars, adult diapers and cleaning supplies.
For WYSE, which has primarily been self-funded, the support gives them some breathing room to dream about the future. They're in the process of becoming a nonprofit organization, and hope to buy a building in West Bloomington this year and create a “free market” with clothes and furniture—plus their usual food and hygiene supplies. After 28 years, that means Marty Lane might one day get to park in her garage.
“People say they want to help a small pantry, and then they get here and they’ll be like, oh God, this isn’t small,” Lane said. “We’re local. We’re small as you see us but once you get here, and you see all these people lined up to get groceries, you see we are not actually small. We are a small building that serves a huge amount of people.”
Starving Artists, featuring M0j0, Without a Tres, Maestro Jones, Fury, Elexen and Veo, play at 7 p.m. Jan. 24 at the Coffeehouse, 114 E. Beaufort St., Normal. Tickets are $10, or $5 with a donation for WYSE. The show is recommended for ages 13 and up.
