Susan Feyereisen is a kitchen and bath designer by trade and now, as a pro bono skilled volunteer with FFEN, she’s using her skills to transform food shelves.
“I enjoy thinking about what shoppers’ needs are in conjunction with the needs of the people volunteering and working in the space,” Feyereisen said.
There’s a correlation between spaces that are enjoyable and efficient and the quality of service its staff and volunteers provide to shoppers, she said. Feyereisen enjoys working with spatial challenges and said food shelves often have a lot of them.
In her last two years as a volunteer with FFEN, Feyereisen has assisted on and/or been the lead designer for projects in Duluth, Cottage Grove, Minneapolis, Red Wing and Winona.
Each site, she said, serves a different community and has unique characteristics and service challenges. She considers everything from traffic patterns and flow of people in a space to hallway lengths, and welcome areas. She concentrates on making sure spaces feel secure and welcoming, focusing on biophilic design in spaces that lack windows – bringing the feel of the outdoors inside using lighting, paint and the introduction of plants.
She enjoys working alongside food shelf teams to design spaces that meet their needs.
“I hope that when I leave the space that the people who work in the food shelf feel a sense of ownership in the space and have the confidence to make changes down the road,” she said.
