A Hermon-based food pantry was ready to begin building a permanent home, only to learn that the lease it thought it signed 11 years ago was never executed.
The Neighbors Supporting Neighbors Community Pantry serves about 200 families a month, and a permanent building will allow it to better serve people, the pantry’s Executive Director Carol Lackedy said. But now the pantry has no place to build after the Hermon Town Council voted 4-2 Thursday to block the nonprofit from building on the land.
Lackedy believed the pantry signed a 25-year lease with the town for the land in 2014. Instead, that year the town passed a resolution to enter into a lease but it was never executed and signed, according to a resolution the council passed Thursday.
Town councilors said during that meeting that they wanted to work to find a new location for the pantry.
“With their support — if they are true to their word, each one of them — the town of Hermon will have a building, of our own, that we can have access to 24 hours a day, seven days a week if somebody needs something,” Lackedy said.
Without this new location, the volunteer-run pantry will be limited in what it can offer to people in need, meaning items like household appliances and cleaning supplies cannot be given out on a regular basis. A permanent location would change that, Lackedy said.
Hermon Town Manager Stephen Fields did not respond to a request for comment.
The property at 466 Billings Road, where Lackedy thought the building would go, is an area with car crashes and dangerous driving, councilor Terry Hamm-Morris said at the meeting. The pantry does good work and not allowing the building there was not a reflection of issues with the non-profit, councilor Derek Wood said.
Neighbors Supporting Neighbors is done fighting for that land, Lackedy said, and is eager to find a new location. The pantry, which became a non-profit in 2008, has always wanted a permanent building. However, the organization is all volunteer run, so things have moved slowly, she said.
There is not any progress in finding a new property as far as Town Councilor Joshua Berry knows, he said Monday. The pantry will continue operating as it has in previous years.
For now, volunteers pack boxes of food at a warehouse, put those boxes in their personal cars and then drive to the Penobscot Snowmobile Club, where they distribute food. Boxes that aren’t picked up are taken back to the warehouse. This system means they can’t easily distribute cleaning supplies, clothing and household items, Lackedy said.
The pantry uses 17 storage units and two semitrailers to hold items that don’t fit at the warehouse, Sen. Joe Baldacci, D-Penobscot, said in a letter to the Hermon Town Council.
A new building is supposed to solve this problem by having a space large enough for people to choose their food and browse through the other items. Lackedy has businesses willing to donate materials and labor to construct the building.
That building, whenever it comes to fruition, will be “a huge change” for the pantry, Lackedy said. Until that time, if a business in the area is willing to let the pantry temporarily use part of its space to store non-perishable food, it would be very helpful.
Neighbors Supporting Neighbors helps people and Hermon needs to reward the pantry’s work, Baldacci said.
“As your Senator in Augusta, who has gone to bat for Hermon on many issues, most notably state funding of Hermon’s public schools and revenue sharing for the Town of Hermon I ask you to reaffirm your commitment to this effort to help so many area families as way for all of us to work together to strengthen our communities and our region of the State,” Baldacci said.