EVANSTON — “The food bank has been in operation for nearly 35 years and during that time we have delivered an estimate of two million meals,” Kay Rossiter of the Lord’s Storehouse told the Herald. “Currently, we are distributing nearly 25,000 pounds of food a month. This has been made possible by oceans of volunteers and donors over the years for which we are truly grateful.”

The Lord’s Storehouse is located in Trinity Lutheran Church at 50 Yellow Creek Rd. An addition built on to the back of the church building has allowed the food bank to move all supplies up from the basement to the ground floor. The new addition also allows for drive-thru pickup of food in order to practice social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rossiter said the addition went up relatively quickly. Vegas Construction started the work early in August and finished by the end of September. The project’s cost was approximately $50,000 and was paid for through donations from private individuals, a $36,000 grant from the Wyoming Community Foundation and $4,000 from Trinity Lutheran Church.She said A&B Electric donated a heater for the new addition. 

The new building houses 11 freezers, a three-door commercial refrigerator, a large stack of empty boxes for packing groceries, pallets of canned goods and several grocery carts for taking the food out to recipients’ vehicles. The food bank rents four rooms within the original facility that store boxes of canned goods, commodities, and four more refrigerators. 

Regular volunteers who were there on the day pictures were taken and who donate hundreds of hours at the food bank include Toni Walworth, Steve Stonebraker, Susan Lester, Peggy Christensen, Amy McWhorter, John Sellers, Joe Wright and Pam Morgan. There are many other volunteers, too many to list, who regularly donate hours at the food bank.

Beth Barker with the Agricultural Extension office offers free cooking classes and simple meal recipes for anyone. Fritz Amsler, 92 years of age and a longtime volunteer at the food bank, still helps from his home by taking phone calls for donations.

Joe Wright, president of Trinity Lutheran Church Council, said, “Our congregation feels blessed to keep our doors open by providing this service. The panic over the COVID pandemic caused us to figure out how to continue to function. Currently, our church services are on hold. We want to expand to provide a daycare along with our current pre-school. We require that everyone wear masks, we sanitize the building before and after every use.”