GENESEO -- The building fund for the Geneseo Food Pantry is well on its way, but still in need of help.
Wyffels Hybrids, Geneseo and Atkinson, recently provided a significant boost to the fundraising drive with a $50,000 donation.
“Fighting Hunger, Building Hope” is the theme of the fundraising campaign. The money raised will be used to pay for an addition to a building that eventually will house the food pantry.
The property at 550 Dilenbeck Drive was purchased earlier this year by the Geneseo Ministerial Association. The site includes a 1,872-square-foot structure that previously housed a convenience store.
Members of the Food Pantry Building Committee have launched the fundraising campaign for an addition to the existing building. Present plans are to build a 6,850-square-foot addition.
The committee has set a goal of raising $1 million and hopes to break ground for the addition early in 2017. The fund drive currently has received $139,015 in cash and $214,319 in pledges.
Contributions to the building campaign may be mailed to the Geneseo Food Pantry, P.O. Box 324, Geneseo, IL 61254, with “building fund” written in the memo lines on checks. Pledges may be made for up to three years.
Food pantry director Jolynn Kitterman said, “In-kind donations from contractors and business owners also are greatly appreciated.”
For more information, visit geneseofoodpantry.org or email geneseopantry@gmail.com.
The food pantry, under the umbrella of the Geneseo Ministerial Association, serves approximately 200 clients, a figure that has nearly doubled in the last 10 years and is expected to continue to grow. People in both Geneseo and Atkinson benefit from the pantry.
The proposed new building will be entirely on one level, which pleases Mrs. Kitterman. “It also will have a lot of storage, and we will be able to expand our clothing and food areas,” she said.
It also will be handicapped-accessible. The current building is not handicapped-accessible on the basement or second-floor levels, and Mrs. Kitterman said, “We now carry items from the basement and from the second floor to the main floor for our clients.”
The current pantry at 217 N. Russell St. was built in the mid-1920s and was purchased by St. Malachy’s Church to serve as a convent for nuns before it became a Christian Education Center for the church. For many years the church was located just across N. Russell Street, until the current church was built on East Ogden Avenue.
