Becker County Food Pantry breaks ground on new building in Detroit Lakes

Detroit Lakes, Minn. (KDLM) – The Becker County Food Pantry broke ground at the site of their new building on Terry Street, just north of Highway 34 in Detroit Lakes, on Wednesday afternoon.

Members of the Detroit Lakes city council, chamber of commerce, along with Brad Carlson, executive director of the county food pantry, and other food pantry board members planted their shovels and celebrated the next chapter for the food donation and distribution center.

Calson said this new building has been 41 years in the making.

“This has been a long process of trying to get a building of our own for the past 41 years, we’ve been at the mercy of the city, or whomever would put us up,” said “And thank goodness the city has been good to us that we’ve been at our location for a while over by the fairgrounds. We are finally getting our own building and we can’t wait for them to get started.”

He also said the new food pantry building will be about twice the size of the old building and should provide a lot more storage area so they will be able to handle a larger volume of donations and distribution.

The Becker County Food Pantry received a $75,000 Otto Bremer grant to cover part of the new building cost.

“We figure we’ve got the money, but we’ll see when all of the bills come, but as of right now, we think we’re good,” he said. “They are basically looking at a $1 million price tag.”

Becker County and the city of Detroit Lakes each contributed $250,000 to the food pantry’s building fund. Detroit Lakes is using funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to cover their share of the costs.

The new Becker County Food Pantry is expected to be open this fall.