SPOKANE, Wash. — A Spokane food bank is expanding its operations thanks to renovation work from the Extreme Team.
Caritas Food Bank is moving from its small space next to City Light Church to a larger facility at Ash and Wellesley. The food bank says the move wouldn’t be possible without the help they’ve received.
“With what they were able to do with painting the walls and the floors and refinishing the kitchen cabinets and doing all of that stuff, it created the opportunity for us to move into this much larger and hopefully better facility,” said Tim Ray, a volunteer at Caritas.
The food bank serves immigrants who are new to the area and people who are underemployed or facing financial difficulties.
The current location limits how much food they can store and how many people they can serve at once.
“Currently we can only serve about three people at a time just because of the narrowness of the aisles,” Ray explained. “Hopefully, we’ll be able to serve more people at a time and that will then allow us to rotate people through more efficiently.”
Caritas wanted to move to the new location but didn’t have funding to renovate the space. That’s when they were selected as an Extreme Team project.
Volunteers describe the renovated space as “immaculate and beautiful.” The larger facility will provide more storage capacity to meet community needs.
For Kalen Bull, who first came to Caritas as a client and now volunteers, the work has special meaning.
“I see the clients and I’m like, ‘man, I was there. I was in that position.’ And I’m not now because I don’t need to be,” Bull said.
The volunteers at Caritas find it rewarding to help people become self-sufficient.
“Two Thursdays ago, we had a gentleman that had come in and he said this is the last time I will hopefully be here because I have a full-time job now,” Ray shared.
The Extreme Team’s work included painting walls and floors and refinishing kitchen cabinets. Without this help, Caritas couldn’t have relocated from their cramped space.
The new location will allow Caritas to help more people facing food insecurity in Spokane. The increased storage means they can keep more food and essential items on hand.
Volunteers are excited about serving clients more effectively in the new space.
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