Hollister
– The local Community Pantry has found a new facility on San
Felipe Road just in time for the busy Thanksgiving and Christmas
season after a year of searching.
Hollister – The local Community Pantry has found a new facility on San Felipe Road just in time for the busy Thanksgiving and Christmas season after a year of searching.
“We’re very excited to be here,” said Mary Anne Hughes, executive director of the Community Pantry. “There’s been a lot of activity around here.”
The Community Pantry has been essentially homeless since Christmas 2005, after the city announced plans to demolish the structure used as its warehouse. The building was located at the Hollister airport, but new Federal Aviation Administration provisions mandate that airports cannot house non-aviation operations in order to qualify for grant money.
Since then the nonprofit has distributed food at Veteran’s Memorial Park, but the operation has been decidedly smaller than staff and volunteers want.
“Right now we feed between 2,500 and 3,000 people a week,” Hughes said. “We figured out that that’s about 5 percent of the population, but we’ve estimated that around 20 percent qualify for our help. Some of them probably have friends and family who can take care of them, but we think there are a lot of people that we just haven’t been able to serve in the past.”
But when the community pantry finishes moving into its new facility on San Felipe, just in front of the community services structure, Hughes said the organization will be able to grow.
“Our goal is to be able to serve that 20 percent,” she said.
It’s taken community pantry so long to find a new home for a number of reasons, Hughes said, one of which was the fact that there simply aren’t too many buildings in the community suitable for housing tons of food. Another was location; it’s crucial that the facility be located somewhere accessible to the people community pantry serves.
“This is a ways out of town,” Hughes said. “But the bus runs right here and since it’s so close to community services, that will be probably be helpful for a lot of people.”
The new facility will allow staff to stockpile and distribute more food, and distribute food directly from the facility instead of Veteran’s Memorial Park. Nov. 15 will be the last day community pantry will be in the park. And a new freezer has been installed so the pantry can begin accepting frozen turkeys for the holidays.
But this is just the beginning, Hughes said. The nonprofit is currently leasing the building, with an option to buy. They intend to do so and will be mounting a capital campaign this year to drum up $2 million to cover the purchase and other expenses.
“Our vehicles are outdated and need to be replaced; every single one of them died on us at one point last year,” Hughes said. “We also want to get $1 million in our endowment fund so that we can continue taking care of the building for years.”
Right now is a busy time of year for Hughes and her fellow staff and co-workers, and she hopes the community will remember the pantry this holiday season.
“This is just step one,” she said. “Please don’t forget about us.”
Right now community pantry is collecting dried and canned foods for its holiday drive, but monetary donations are also extremely useful.
“We can take that money to special warehouses, and get three times the amount of food for the same amount of money you would spend at a grocery store. … This money is what keeps supporting us for most of the year.”
To volunteer or donate, call 637-0340.
Danielle Smith covers education for the Free Lance. Reach her at 637-5566, ext. 336 or ds****@fr***********.com.
