Change is Happening! What’s New at our Lexington Facility?
Next week, God’s Pantry Food Bank is starting major renovation projects at its Lexington headquarters on Jaggie Fox Way in conjunction with our Come to the Table capital campaign. We are extremely excited to begin seeing physical transformations based on the success of this campaign and the generous financial commitments from individuals, corporations and foundations who have pledged support to the campaign.
With the renovation projects, come some major changes to our daily operations. For the next several months, beginning this week, the majority of our operations will be moving to our Winchester facility. Our volunteer opportunities will be very limited during construction as well, in an effort to keep our volunteers safe and preserve the quality and food safety standards. Below is detailed information on what will be happening to our warehouse and how it will affect our supporters.
Facility Upgrades
Greater Refrigeration Capacity:
Increased refrigeration has been a major part of the Come to the Table campaign. It will enable God’s Pantry Food Bank to navigate shifts in the type of donated food now made available to its clients. In the food banking world, dry and canned food donations are decreasing. The good news is that donations of fresh produce, meat and dairy items—more nutritious food than what has previously been available—have increased.
The challenge is that we are sometimes unable to accept perishable food because of our limited refrigeration capacity. If perishable donations exceed our present available refrigeration space, God’s Pantry Food Bank has to pay to arrange off-site storage, or create a special delivery route immediately to ensure the product can be distributed within 24 hours because of storage limits.
Adequate refrigeration will enable us to access more available refrigerated and frozen product and gain precious time to move it to our agencies. The tough part comes in finding the funds to make it a reality.
After spending two years researching the proper size, configuration, and supplier, we have identified a construction company that can build a four-compartment, racked refrigeration-freezer unit that can accommodate 564 pallets at temperatures ranging from 0 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Expanded Volunteer Work Space:
Generous and committed volunteers play a critical role in our efficient operation, but our lack of volunteer space limits our growth. We will add rooms over our current Welcome Center and Volunteer Food Sort areas to create a larger, dedicated volunteer space to accommodate the volunteer resources required to meet demand. This addition will allow us to move our current food repackaging operations off the warehouse floor into a temperature-controlled environment and to a space able to accommodate up to 60 volunteers at one time. It will also give us dedicated space for volunteers and community groups to conduct meetings and trainings and simply take a break during long work sessions.
Additional Office Space:
We will outfit the unfinished 1,000 square feet of our Lexington location’s second-floor office area to create new office and meeting spaces for our dedicated staff.
How will the changes affect our staff and volunteers?
- Beginning in February, the majority of our daily warehouse operations will be moving to our Winchester facility. A limited number of operations staff will continue working from our Lexington facility to assist in maintaining our direct service programs in Fayette County.
- Our volunteer operations will undergo a temporary “makeover” during the construction period, which is expected to be complete by June 30.
- All repack sessions have gone on temporary hiatus.* This means that no volunteer sessions will be held on Tuesday evenings or Saturday afternoons for the duration of construction.
- Food sort sessions will continue for the duration of construction, but have been moved to another part of our warehouse. Details are available on our Frequently Asked Questions page, but volunteers should note that entrance to the building has been relocated to the ramp at the loading docks immediately behind the Welcome Center entrance. Restroom access is very limited as well. We will limit our volunteer sessions to two hours on Thursday evenings and Saturday mornings and will not be scheduling daytime work groups during construction.
While the construction period will create inconveniences for our staff, member agencies and dedicated volunteers, we are very excited about the incredible opportunities the expansion will bring to our organization this summer and look forward to welcoming back our dedicated supporters to our “new spaces” in July!