The Moose Jaw & District Food Bank is excited to finally announce that its search for a new building is over, as the non-profit organization has found and purchased a property that will soon become its next home.
“We didn’t expect it to take a whole year to materialize, but we are really excited to announce that we have finally purchased a forever home for the Moose Jaw & District Food Bank,” said Daycee Richardson, chair for the food bank.
The new building is an empty warehouse located at 270 Fairford Street West — just across the street from the food bank’s current building — and features a 4,000 square foot warehouse with loading docks, adjoining office space and room for expansion.
The idea of finding a new, larger location has been in the works for a long time, said Richardson, although the need for more space became much more urgent when COVID-19 began complicating the food bank’s operations.
Due to the ongoing restrictions on physical distancing, the food bank has been serving clients outdoors in their current location, which was difficult throughout the winter months. It has also had to drastically reduce the number of volunteers allowed to work in the building at one time, also lending stress to the food bank’s usual operations.
This new location will provide the food bank with the elbow room it needs to continue serving the community with its best service — and even expand its programming in the future.
“We really see it as a great season for us, to put a large investment into what will be long-term service for the community in the area of food security, so it's exciting,” said Richardson. “And one of the exciting things about this property is that it has been standing empty for almost 20 years, and now we have the chance to revitalize that little corner of the neighbourhood.”
Richardson shared that the new building will need some construction work before the food bank can fully move in, including updates to the warehouse like the installation of a walk-in fridge and cooler.
Also on the to-do list is a complete “gut and redo” of the attached office space, to better accommodate food bank staff, as well as the construction of a 1,200 square foot addition to create a large lobby for client interaction.
“We are really planning to design our space to maximize our partnership with volunteers, and we are also planning a very bright and welcoming indoor space for clients that will be suitable whether they have to social distance or not,” said Richardson.
When the food bank first began looking for a new building space over a year ago, Richardson said the goal was to find a place that would need minor renovations before the non-profit could move in. But after looking for so long for a location close to downtown with all their needed amenities, they decided to take on the additional construction projects to finalize their search.
“We did not foresee it taking this long [but] I think in the end, this will be a really wonderful place for us to meet clients and also be able to expand services down the road,” said Richardson.
The food bank held a wildly successful fundraising campaign this past summer to help with the purchase of a new building, which hit the food bank’s initial goal and soared beyond to raise an impressive total of over $118,282 for the project.
Richardson said these funds are covering the cost of the property and the first two phases of construction at the new building — preparing the warehouse and renovating the existing office space.
Constructing an addition on the building to create a large lobby space will be phase three, she continued, and may require a little more fundraising in the future.
But despite the added steps to the project, Richardson said everyone at the food bank is excited to have a new and improved location in their sights.
“We’re very excited about the possibility to not just fit into an existing space, but to build the space to work for us,” said Richardson. “It's really going to be our space that’s a great place for volunteers to work, which has been part of the struggle of the last year.”
The food bank is expecting to be in its new location very soon, provided the first two phases of their building renovations go smoothly.
“We don’t anticipate everything will be one hundred per cent finished before we start operating from that premise, [but] we’re hoping to be functioning out of that space sometime in late spring,” said Richardson.
Work on the lobby addition will hopefully be completed by the end of summer, in time to welcome clients inside the building when the colder temperatures return.
With likely many more fundraising campaigns in the future, Richardson thanked the community for its ongoing support of the food bank over the last several decades.
“We started with the generosity of the community in the 80s, and the community continues to support us very generously, so we're very grateful for that,” said Richardson. “We wouldn’t have been able to come this far without Moose Jaw’s support, and we’re excited to finally get to share some of the product of that generosity.”
Updates on the transition to the new location will be shared on the food bank’s Facebook page, said Richardson, along with any upcoming ways people can volunteer or offer support to the project.
