Food pantry in Troy searches for new building

The Troy Food Pantry is able to serve more families now than ever before, owing part of its success to the city for housing it for the past six years.

However, the days of free rent and electricity appear numbered. Mayor Don Banning informed Troy Food Pantry Director Sue Grabinski last month that the city would like to build a new conference center where the pantry now sits.

“He just said because Troy is expanding, they needed the space to put in a conference room,” Grabinski recalled. “This is where they want to put it.”

The food pantry is located in one of the two old fire engine bays that sit between the courtroom and offices in the city hall building. The pantry currently has about 16 tons of food in the multiple freezers and refrigerators and on the shelves that line the 12-foot high walls.

Six teams of three volunteers rotate to staff the pantry every Monday, Grabinski said. Last year the food pantry distributed nearly 47,000 pounds of food to 176 households. Now the pantry is asking the community for help. 

“We’re just putting a plea out there,” Grabinski said. 

There are empty buildings for sale around town that may open their doors for the pantry temporarily, Grabinski said, but the volunteer-run operation doesn’t have the resources to move freezers and tons of food from venue to venue.

Also complicating matters is that many food pantry clients are elderly or don’t have transportation, meaning that the ideal location would be ground level and right in town.

Grabinski and her husband, Tom, say that another site would probably have to have more square feet because the ceiling wouldn’t be as high as it is at their current location.

“We would need 1,000 square feet, ideally with a 10-foot ceiling,” Tom Grabinski said.

Sue Grabinski said she has been looking for a semi-permanent facility that would fit the needs of the food pantry, but in the end, it comes down to funding.

“One unit is available at the old senior center,” she pointed out, “but they need rent.”

A new location would probably include overhead cost, which would change the way the organization fundraises.

“Some elderly people are donating $20 per month,” Grabinski said. “They’re doing it to provide food, not to pay a heating bill.”

Banning said that when the food pantry moved to the space six years ago, it was supposed to be temporary.

“We just never needed the room before,” Banning said, “but now we need a conference room.”

Banning converted the former city hall conference room, which was also used as a meeting place for community clubs, into his office when he became mayor last month. The council’s monthly work meetings are still held there, but are now crowded by the new, larger furniture.

“This room is not big enough,” he said.   

The city applied for an energy efficiency grant that would swap out single-pane windows and replace the building’s bay doors with a wall, windows and regular doors. City property that is stored in the second bay would most likely be moved to the city shop, Banning said, and the space remodeled to create a conference room.

Banning said he didn’t give the food pantry a timeframe to move because he wants to ensure that the organization finds a suitable location. Though the city doesn’t know yet if it was awarded the grant, he believes it is time for the food pantry to move on.

Currently, he said, the food pantry can ring up a “pretty good electricity expense” with its bay door and freezers.

“It’s more of a responsibility for the churches,” Banning said. “We shouldn’t use taxpayer money to fund it.”

He added, “It’s a great cause, but it’s just got to be someplace else.”