Pantry Prepares for Record Demand in New, Much-Needed Space
Set to open June 17
BAR HARBOR—The floors are down, the walls are rebuilt, and the ceiling has been fixed and all that means that after months of hard work renovating the former Mama DiMatteo’s, the Bar Harbor Food Pantry expects to open at its new location on June 17.
“It will feel good,” Food Pantry Executive Director Tom Reeve said. “Really good.”
The space at 34 Kennebec Place is full of light and . . . full of actual space. That means that staff and volunteers won’t spend all their time restocking cramped shelves.
That will make a huge difference, Reeve said, for the staff and for the clients.
Instead, the staff will be able to also take care of the pantry’s administrative needs, plan new programs, and raise funds to help keep feeding the people who need help getting good food and good meals.
That, after all, is the pantry’s mission and it had been a hard thing to do when the need had grown so much larger and the space had become too limited for the pantry’s needs.
“The simple fact is that our pantry cannot handle the volume we are seeing. Our home of the past 25 years lacks the space and capacity to process, store, and distribute enough food to meet the needs of so many people. We lack enough cold storage to store what we need between delivery times. The same goes for dry storage. Additionally, the lack of space increases our food costs in the long run because we cannot take full advantage of free and reduced-cost items available to us through the Good Shepherd Food Bank and it increases our labor costs due to constant restocking from a lack of shelf space,” the pantry wrote on its website in November.
That hasn’t changed.
“We’re very busy right now,” Reeve said, “busier than we’ve ever been.”
The need is only increasing as people struggle with escalating food costs, electricity costs, and property taxes.
“We have gone from seeing 20-35 people a day in 2022 to 48-101 people per day in 2024. The long and short of it, our home of 25 years is too small,” Reeve explained in November.
There’s just a staff of three that runs the organization that meets that need.
“We now deliver to people who are homebound,” Reeve said. “There’s just a lot more need.”
The pantry is now typically serving over 300 people a week. That number increases in the summer. In June 2024, the pantry served 100 people a day. In 2023, the pantry helped more than 1,000 households.
Now that it’s almost June, the pantry ‘s new home is close to being ready.
“Every single stud, joist or rafter had to be replaced or sistered,” Reeve said. “The studs were dust.”
The walls are double thick in the major gut and rebuild of the space. Izaak Giberson was the main person in charge of the work that will allow the staff to have offices on site, volunteers to have lockers and will eventually allow the pantry to engage in more partnerships with organizations like Healthy Acadia and Peggy Rockefeller Farm.
“It will be Sara’s first office in the 12 years she’s worked here,” Reeve said about Sara Graves, the pantry manager. “She’s really excited about having an office.”
It has 150% more storage space, six times more cold storage, a more central location, windows to bring in light and it is a building that has a long history of feeding people from its time as a restaurant. Eric Olson sold Mama’s to the food pantry. The building’s purchase was $1,260,000 and renovations, equipment purchases, loan interest brought that cost to $1,740,000.
“Everything is bigger,” Reeve said.
There will be five spots for parking as well as an ADA-space.
The pantry is still fundraising for those costs, but is heartened by the support of the community, which has brought them well over $1.2 million toward the fundraising goal of $2.5 million.
Those are the numbers that help illuminate the need, but the pantry is more than numbers. It’s about people.
As Vanessa, a food pantry client said, ““Shopping at the pantry, it was unlike anywhere else I had shopped. People really cared. I’d be headed out and someone would stop me: “Oh, did you get your almond milk? Because I know you like almond milk. I know you don’t like to drink cow’s milk because of this and that.”
Reeve and his staff have had a lot of days of working and planning. He and Phoebe Denvir put in the floor themselves. It was a potential way of cutting costs a bit, but more than that, it was a moment of tangible stewardship.
Every time they come into work, they can look at the floor, the foundation that holds up all the food storage, the surface that supports all their customers, and think, “We put that there. We laid that floor. We helped build this.”
And that’s the thing.
Every single person who gives, who has volunteered, who has used the pantry’s services or donated clothes at Serendipty, its resale store, can say that, too. They built this place where people support each other in two of the most basic ways: with kindness and with food.
Over at Serendipity:
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Acadia Brochures of Maine.
LINKS TO LEARN AND DO. MORE:
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FOOD PANTRY, CLICK HERE.
TO LEARN HOW YOU CAN HELP THE PANTRY, CLICK HERE.
TO VOLUNTEER, YOU CAN CLICK HERE.
TO DONATE, YOU CAN CLICK HERE.
Or BY MAIL by sending a check to P.O. Box 434 / Bar Harbor, ME 04609
Or IN-PERSON at the Pantry or Serendipity during open hours
Pantry Open Hours (on Mount Desert Street)
Tuesday - 9:00 a.m - 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday - 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m.
Thursday - 12 noon - 6:00 p.m.
Friday - 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon - Fresh Food Fridays
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