I am in awe and full of respect for the residents of this town. Our Community Eats (OCE) had a monumental move on its hands to get the pantry relocated from the old Sears building into the recently purchased Tennyson Building Event Center.
Many people from all walks of life came to support the move. The building was purchased for OCE from a very generous donor. OCE finalized the sale of the building Aug. 1. A local design company graciously drafted the architectural plans as a donation in record time, allowing permits to be filed.
Several men from a local church came and helped my husband do the demo work to create warehouse space. Many local business donated supplies for this project.
A husband-and-wife team in their late 70s built our front desk out of repurposed materials from the demo of the building. A tremendous amount of work was done quickly. When the building was ready for the pantry to start moving over, we encountered an obstacle locating a truck with a lift gate.
Colorado Care and Share mobilized a driver and semi truck to move many pallets of food to the new location. This alone was a huge miracle of God.
Then came tearing apart the pantry shelving and moving the actual pantry with its 17 refrigerators and freezer units. The high school football team came and moved it all. A local real estate company loaned us a moving truck.
Several folks showed up with trailers to help. Many people reassembled the pantry and restocked shelves. Even Mary Miller, who is 92 years old, stocked shelves for over five hours. The help didn’t stop there. Lindy, 74 years of age, cleaned, scrubbed and buffed floors for five days to ensure our security deposit would be refunded on the previous rental location.
The county permit office instructed us on what is required for a temporary use permits. The fire department jumped through major hoops to get the fire inspection and final reports turned in to the permit office. We all cheered at this effort.
Two local banks donated funds to help with a portion of the cost of our new sign. Never in my life have I seen so many folks in all aspects of a town pull together like this to assist a food pantry into its permanent location and get reopened.
People come to Pagosa and see our beautiful mountains and lovely town. But the core of this town, however, are people with huge, caring hearts. This community wants to make sure all residents have enough to eat. Through such extraordinary efforts, the pantry was closed one business day and was fully up and running the next business day. God has His eye on Pagosa and all are remembered. I am so proud of this community, and I am humbled and honored to be a part of it. Together we can do great things.
If anyone needs help with groceries, we are open Monday 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Wednesday 4 to 6 p.m., Thursday 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and Friday 10 a.m. to noon. Our location is 197 Navajo Trails Drive.
You can also visit our website at www.ourcommunityeats.com for more information about us.
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