Tuesday, March 19, 2024

Community Cupboard needs new home

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The Community Cupboard food bank and thrift store is looking for a new space. After more than 20 years in their space on 14th street in Leavenworth, it is time to move. 

“We’re going to be looking for a new home. The city of Leavenworth has generously donated that space to use. With the wastewater treatment plant expansion, we need to move to a new location. The city will need that space to expand,” said Kaylin Bettinger, executive director of Upper Valley MEND, which runs the Community Cupboard. “Our lease is up at the end of 2019. We’re starting to look for a space now, knowing that it might take some time but also wanting some flexibility to test some things out in the process.”

The first step is to find a new home for the food bank, said Community Cupboard Program Manager Bob Mark. It makes the most sense to keep the thrift in place, for the time being. 

“The food bank will be out initially. Eventually, we want to find a new home for the thrift store. The hope is we can play with each service and come up with the best way to operate each of those,” Mark said. “The food bank, we want it to become more of a shopping experience for people, so they can shop for the food they want each month, rather than the food bank experience.”

On the thrift store side, Mark said they want to play with the model and see if there are things they can do to increase revenue, change up the space and make it a more friendly shopping experience for people. 

The idea is, by having each entity separate, they will be able to play with it and come up with the model for the operational approach, he said. Currently, the thrift store funds the food bank. 

“Right now, that is the way it works because they are in the same space. That will continue to be the way it works. It will help to provide for the food bank, even in a different space,” Bettinger said. “It was one of things we talked about when we wrestled with... splitting them or keeping them together. We’re kind of bursting at the seams.”

Both entities are going to need more space, she said. Looking at what is available in town, they know it would be hard to put them under the same roof and expand them they way that they want. 

“As a thrift store, it is a really tight space for the shoppers to move around and shop, but also for the sorters in the back room. There is not much space for them to work. We get a lot of donations. Currently, we have limits, two bags per day. That’s unfortunate. People don’t want to limit their donations to the thrift store,” Mark said. “We want to be able to accept everything. We need more space for that.”

Mark said they need a good space for staff and volunteers. The food bank is a pretty cramped space, a well. The food storage space is at capacity, he said. 

“In every way, we could use more space. That’s another reason that separating them might be a good strategy. It will give us a chance to play with the space and see what space would be ideal for each,” Mark said. 

The new space for the food bank does not have to be within the city, Bettinger said. During the last year, UV MEND has been doing a study to see where their clients and shoppers have been coming from. They’ve done a number of community surveys. 

“One of the things that came out of that was, 80 percent of our food bank clients live between here and Dryden,” she said. “We’re looking at spaces now between here and Peshastin, knowing those are the areas where we would best be able to serve our clients.”

While the food bank might land in Peshastin, Mark said they would like to see the thrift store remain in Leavenworth to take advantage of the tourism and shoppers. 

The current space has been donated by the city, and while Bettinger is not expecting such a sweet deal again, but it would be nice. 

“We would love that, of course. We know that is not the scenario that might pan out. We are open to that. We’re at the point where we’re looking at market rate rents,” Bettinger said. 

Many food banks are located in churches. Mark said that is on their list too. Bettinger said they are excited about the future of the Cupboard, coming up with new ideas and visions for the future. She is excited to see what it might look like down the line. 

At the moment, they are interested hearing from anyone who might be able to help them. The food bank serves about 600-700 each month, around 250 families. Mark said the change in separating the two entities is going to be a big change for a lot of people. 

“There will be some growing pains. We want people to know, our intention is to improve the experience for both the food bank and thrift store. We want to make it better and we hope people have faith in us to do that,” Mark said. “Going forward, we’re hoping to improve the community cupboard and make it a better experience for everybody. Undoubtedly, it will be tough transition for some folks because it has been this way since the beginning.”

Around 1,800 individuals are at the Cupboard each year, Bettinger said. That is a significant portion of the upper valley population of 10,000. 

“We’re pushing 20 percent of the upper valley using the Cupboard and food bank. That’s a pretty big number of folks served by that program every year,” she said. 

Mark said they are very grateful to the city. 

“We want to express our gratitude to the city of Leavenworth for letting us have that space for over 20 years. That’s been a huge help for us. We would not be able to do what we do for the community without them,” Mark said. 

If you would like to help out or have suggestions on possible spaces for the Community Cupboard, call UV MEND at 548-0408 or email info@uvmend.org. 

Ian Dunn can be reached at 548-5286 or editor@leavenworthecho.com. 

 

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