Illinois Valley Food Pantry has been making its move the past few days into its new home on Wright Street in downtown La Salle.
“The cold’s been an issue,” said Donna Hess, executive director, on Friday. “We had the moving truck here and it was below zero — real troopers. Our wish was to open next Wednesday, if not Wednesday, hopefully next Friday.”
After 14 years at 136 Marquette St. in La Salle, the Illinois Valley Food Pantry is moving two blocks west to 122 Wright St., where it will rent 4,500 square feet in the former Educators of Beauty business. The new site gives the pantry about 1,300 more square feet. The announcement was made late November after the pantry board decided it had outgrown the current offices.
Hess was getting her new office set up on Friday. Her computer was up and running. The old offices on Marquette Street were almost empty Friday, she said. More moving will happen this weekend. Freezers and coolers still had to be moved, she said.
The pantry is not a business that can close down and reopen.
“We’re just really in the middle of transition,” Hess said. “We’re a week behind schedule on home deliveries to La Salle, Peru, Oglesby. We’re trying to take in some food that people want us to pick up.”
Jeff Dankert can be reached at (815) 220-6977 or lasallereporter@newstrib.com. Follow him on Twitter @NT_LaSalle.
