Hollister
– A year ago, Community Pantry’s staff and board members set
their sights on a bigger and better home.
Hollister – A year ago, Community Pantry’s staff and board members set their sights on a bigger and better home.
On Thursday, the organization moved into that new home.
Community Pantry Director Mary Anne Hughes said the new facility at 1133 San Felipe Road will be more accessible than the food bank’s former location for those who use the organization’s services and will allow staff to be more efficient serving the community.
Unlike Community Pantry’s former home at the Hollister airport, the 5,500-square-foot building on San Felipe Road is accessible by bus route.
“People can get to us who couldn’t get to us at the old building,” Hughes said.
Although the decision to move was made when the city announced plans in 2005 to demolish the building the organization occupied at the airport, Community Pantry staff and board members welcomed the change, said board president Michele Stephenson.
“We knew that something was going to have to happen,” Stephenson said. “When we found this, there was a great deal of anticipation.”
The move has come on the heels of an increase in Community Pantry’s service. Since 2004, Community Pantry has gone from distributing 600 bags per week to 1,000 bags of food per week, Hughes said.
Hughes said the organization presently provides services to about 5 percent of San Benito County’s residents, although many more are eligible.
“Moving into this building has given us more than just 1,400 extra square feet,” she said.
Hughes said the new location gives the Community Pantry the ability to better organize its stock and distribute its food from the location itself, instead of from Veterans Memorial Park. Setting up a distribution point in the park took time and effort, Hughes said.
“When it used to take 50 people to get ready, we can now do it with our staff,” she said.
The extra space for food will also help the organization officially make the leap from a food pantry, which just delivers food, to a food bank, which distributes food to other organizations. Although the Community Pantry is acting as San Benito County’s food bank, the organization will eventually apply to the state to be recognized as a food bank under the Food and Drug Administration, Hughes said.
“We’re kind of a hybrid at this point,” she said.
The designation would allow Community Pantry to apply for state and federal grants to bring outside money into the county, Hughes said.
“We have a wonderful, generous community in this county,” Hughes said. “But they can only be asked to do so much.”
Michael Van Cassell covers public safety for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 335 or mv*********@***********ws.com.
