Seth Rother
TOWER – After serving the community for more than 25 years out of the basement of the Timberjay Building, the Tower Area Food Shelf has moved its operations to the old St. James Presbyterian Church building. Though it’s only a two-minute walk from its previous location, food shelf organizers hope the new location will be more accessible for patrons and provide more volunteer-run food options.
“It’s convenient for parking more cars and it’s handicap friendly. There are no stairs, so it’s easy for people in wheelchairs to get in,” said Hugh Wood, Tower Area Food Shelf Director. [the old space]It allows us to offer more food options.”
The food shelf began looking for a larger site last July, and a month later St. James Presbyterian Church (first established in Tower in 1884) was put up for sale, so Wood contacted the Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency, and after a tour, the AEOA recommended purchasing the property. The AEOA oversees the Tower Area Food Shelf, as well as food shelves in Babbitt, Erie, Aurora and elsewhere.
The Food Shelf purchased and renovated the building using savings and a grant for a new HVAC system, and volunteers with carpentry experience spent a little more than six months laying floors, doing woodwork and painting to get the space ready for use.
“I think myself and four other volunteers spent close to 200 hours removing carpet and other things,” Wood said. “You can’t have carpet in a grocery store.”
Where pews once stood there are now shelves stocked with food, where the pastor’s pulpit once stood there is now an office desk, and in the now-empty basement, the food shelf operator is considering opening a small retail store.
“We’re thinking about turning it into a thrift store in the future to save money on overhead, utilities and things like that,” Wood said. “It’s something we’re looking at and the board is all looking at it. Basically, right now we’re just focused on getting the new building up and running and then we’ll probably start planning once we’re up and running.”
The basement has a small kitchen area, which Wood said could be used to host cooking classes in the future.
“We have a woman who volunteers and she’s thinking about doing some cooking classes there to show people what they can make with the food that we give out,” Wood said.
Now that they’ve moved into the new space, food shelf volunteers are rearranging the floor plan for a more organized layout.
“We’re going to operate it like a grocery store,” Wood said. “We’ll have baking supplies in this area, canned vegetables in this area. It’ll be convenient, like a grocery store.”
Timberjay has no current plans for the basement space. The Tower Area Food Shelf is open the third Tuesday of each month from 2:30 to 5 p.m.
