There’s no question Mankato-area low-income families have benefited from the presence of the ECHO Food Shelf for decades.

But the community probably doesn’t realize just how much the food shelf has benefited from the presence of the School Sisters of Notre Dame since its humble beginnings.

For years, retired sisters from the Good Counsel convent have donated their time, funds and food to the service.

In fact, the food shelf may not even exist without the efforts of the sisters.

Back in the 1970s, sisters Grace Schutte and Dorothy Klaers began an outreach ministry after they retired from teaching. They visited nursing homes and sick people in their homes to pray and deliver communion.

“They started giving to meet the needs of the poor,” said Sister Mary Roman, a friend of the late sisters.

Schutte and Klaers were close friends and one-of-a-kind characters, Roman said.

The duo known as pilot and co-pilot — Schutte would navigate and Klaers would drive — were notorious for their erratic snail-pace driving. (Schutte eventually lost her driving privileges, but as fate would have it, she won a car during a Mankato Area Catholic School raffle.)

As pilot and co-pilot were busy ministering to the spirit, they noticed many Mankato residents were in equal need of physical nourishment.

So they began distributing items to the needy during their trips.

That service blossomed into a food shelf outreach program known as the ECHO Food Shelf and officially opened a headquarters in 1983 at the Lincoln Community Center, according to Free Press archives.

The food shelf continued to evolve and was taken over by other parties, but the School Sisters of Notre Dame involvement was far from over.

Things were going well until 1989, when ECHO lost its home at the Lincoln Community Center.

As a member on the board of directors in the ’80s and ’90s, Sister Jane Thibault’s main duty was lining up volunteers — many of them fellow sisters — to pack and organize meals.

But she also helped brainstorm a solution to ECHO’s housing dilemma.