Becker County Food Pantry seeks volunteers to help move Oct. 20-27; grand opening at new location Oct. 31

Detroit Lakes, Minn. (KDLM) – The Becker County Food Pantry is ceasing operations on Friday, Oct. 20, so they can pack up their building and move to their new location on Terry Street, just north of Highway 34, in Detroit Lakes, and they need your help.

The food pantry is looking for volunteers to help them move between Oct. 20-27 so they can prepare for the grand opening of their new building on Oct. 31.

Brad Carlson, executive director for the Becker County Food Pantry, said they need volunteers to help them take apart their shelving and other fixtures and re-install them in their new building.

“The biggest hassle, of course, is kind like rearranging your garage,” said Carlson. “You’ve got to take the shelf apart first and then you need to move the shelving into the new location and put it back up … anybody who’s strong and able-bodied, and in particular, knows how to take pallet racking apart and put pallet racking back together, we would appreciate any and all help.”

The new food pantry building is about double the size of the old building and, Carlson said, should provide more shelf and refrigerated space to hold more food and service more customers.

“Our freezer and refrigerator space is going to be two-and-a-half times what we currently have,” he said. “We’ve run into issues over the last couple of years where we’ve gotten so much frozen food product that we had to hire a refridgerated semi to hold the stuff for us. With this we’re hopeful that we have room to hold everything.”

Anyone interested in volunteering to help move the Becker County Food Pantry is encouraged to email: bcfoodpantry@gmail.com, or show up next Friday at 9 a.m. to help with the move.