Middlebury food pantry to relocate - Goshen News

Middlebury food pantry to relocate - Goshen News

MIDDLEBURY — Eighth-grader Alizabeth Searl sat on bended knees while painting a portion of a wall with a paint roller in the future home of the Middlebury food pantry Wednesday evening.

A group of Goshen Middle School eighth-graders volunteered their time to help with the renovation of the former Pleasant Oaks church building at 13307 C.R. 16 in Middlebury.

“This is like my first experience painting and it’s going good. I’ve always wanted to do charity work and give back, so I’m glad to be giving back,” Searl said. “I like to do painting like art, so this is like extreme painting.”

There’s a lot of work to be completed before the food pantry can be relocated to its new location, according to director Pam Bingaman.

Even though the current location is a small, white parsonage next to First Mennonite Church of Middlebury on East Lawrence Street, the food pantry is set up in the fellowship hall at the church for the Saturday morning food distributions.

Bingaman became the director in 2008 and hoped the need for the food pantry would decline at some point, but that hasn’t happened yet, she said.

“We’ve outgrew the parsonage house,” Bingaman said.

About five years ago, there was some discussion about moving the food pantry to the former Pleasant Oaks building and the dream became a reality three years ago, she added.

Part of the building has been used by the Pleasant Oaks Nursery School and recently changed their classrooms from the former fellowship hall to the former sanctuary inside the building.

“The old daycare will be our food warehouse with steel shelving and Lippert Components has offered to weld up shelves when we are ready for shelving,” the director said. “We also have to have two handicap-accessible bathrooms that are up to code. The funding for the food pantry fizzled out after the first $30,000 and we need between $60,000 to $70,000 to bring everything up to code compliance to get going. I was going to wait for funding but God had different plans.”

The director said the current plans include working on the legalities of an easement agreement with Essenhaus for a strip of property on a side of the building to hook into the Middlebury Township sewer hookup.

“That easement agreement is still in the works and if the easement is agreed upon, the sewer hookup could be done by the end of October and we could be moved in by the end of the year,” Bingaman said. “We want to do everything right from the beginning so we don’t have to go back later and change something.”

There have been discussions among the clients, volunteers and the director for future programs once the facility is functional, she added.

Some of the suggestions for future programs include ways to help clients get back on their feet, addiction recovery classes, a community garden, classes to help clients learn English and Spanish.

“We offer our clients volunteer positions to offer them a hand-up rather than a hand-out. Sometimes it’s hard for people to admit to needing help,” Bingaman said. “Empowering is much more appealing.”

In the meantime, volunteers like the Goshen Middle School eighth-graders have worked on Wednesday evenings to begin renovations in the building.

“I like to hear the kids make happy sounds,” Bingaman said. “It makes a difference and we live in really generous communities.”

For eighth-grader Cole Sherwood, the opportunity to volunteer was fun and rewarding.

“It’s fun and good to help. It’s for a good cause,” Sherwood said. “It makes me feel good to help people.”

For more information about volunteering or making donations to the Middlebury Food Pantry, check out their Facebook Page at http://ift.tt/2cr4HgU.

Follow Sherry Van Arsdall on Twitter at @svanarsdall_TGN.