photo by: Ashley Golledge

Just Food staff are pictured at 1000 E. 11th St. on Wednesday, March 3, 2021. Left to right: Aundrea Shafer, program director: Tory Roberson, food recovery manager; Jessica Cooney, client services manager: Paul Peach, operations director; Ryan Bowersox, outreach director; Steven Elliott, volunteer manager; Elizabeth Mayfield Keever; executive director; Brett Salsbury, director of finance and development; Michaela Cantrell, community health specialist. Not pictured: Wayne Briggs, food recovery assistant.

The Lawrence food pantry Just Food on Wednesday named an interim executive director.

Effective May 14, Brett Salsbury, Just Food’s director of finance and development, will take the reins from outgoing leader Elizabeth Keever.

Salsbury originally joined Just Food as the organization’s administrative assistant in August 2019 and was promoted to director of finance and development in March 2020, according to a news release from the nonprofit.

“I am honored to continue working with Just Food in this new capacity,” Salsbury said in the release. “The ongoing fight against hunger has required innovative solutions to the evolving obstacles our community has faced in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and other challenges that have arisen. Our work at Just Food and the fight against hunger has never been more prescient and important.”

Salsbury was raised in Kansas and attended the University of Kansas for his undergraduate degree and then received a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

Keever announced in March that she was leaving Just Food after nine years to join the Heartland Community Health Center leadership team as chief development officer.