Food Pantry’s New Home Brings More Room—and Urgency—as Demand Triples
The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Swan Agency Real Estate.
BAR HARBOR—It was a housewarming party and a celebration for the Bar Harbor Food Pantry (BHFP), August 20, as staff and board greeted guests to celebrate the pantry’s new home at 34 Kennebec Place the former Mama Di’Matteo’s, owned by Eric Olsen.
The event was a thank you to those who made the pantry’s move possible and also a moment for the pantry to explain how great the need is in the community.
“In 2024, BHFP saw nearly 12,000 visits, tripling the number of households served compared [to] the past two years [sic]. As food insecurity continues to rise in Mount Desert Island and surrounding areas, BHFP is working hard to meet the need,” according to a press release.
However, the pantry intends to keep meeting that need at its new space.
“This new space is more than a building, it’s a symbol of stability and care for those we serve,” said Tom Reeve, the pantry’s executive director. “We want the community to feel proud of this place and proud of what we’re building together.”
The pantry had been in the back of the YWCA building on Mount Desert Street. The move brings 150% more storage space, six times more cold storage, a more central location, windows to bring in light and it is a building that has a long history of feeding people from its time as a restaurant.
The building’s purchase was $1,260,000 and renovations, equipment purchases, loan interest brought that cost to $1,740,000.
According to the press release, “the purchase of the Kennebec Street building was made possible by a few generous lead donors. However, the pantry is raising funds to close the gap on the final loan to ensure long-term sustainability.”
“The entire board is incredibly proud of the hard work being done by the BHFP team,” said BHFP Board Chair Jena Young. “The work to help nourish our greater community is never complete. We are thrilled to open the doors to our community and to show them what their support has made possible.”
Every time you ask the pantry’s Reeve, he says much the same thing: people’s need is increasing.
“We’re very busy right now,” Reeve said, “busier than we’ve ever been.”
That need is linked to escalating food costs, electricity costs, fuel costs, and property tax increases.
“We have gone from seeing 20-35 people a day in 2022 to 48-101 people per day in 2024. The long and short of it, our home of 25 years is too small,” Reeve explained in November 2024 about the pantry’s move.
There’s just a staff of three that runs the organization that meets that need. There are, however, many volunteers that help the organization serve the community and those changing community needs.
“We now deliver to people who are homebound,” Reeve said. “There’s just a lot more need.”
The pantry typically serves over 300 people a week. That number increases in the summer.
The Hancock County 2025 Food Insecurity fact sheet released by the state says that there are 7,360 food insecure people in the county and of those, 1,820 are children. That 13.1% rate for all individuals is slightly less than Maine’s 13.8% rate.
In a letter to the Bangor Daily News in May, Good Shepard Food Bank President Heather Paquette said, “From July 2022 to June 2023, Good Shepherd Food Bank distributed 40 million pounds of food to community food pantries across the state. By May 15, 2024, we had already reached that same number, and we are on track to surpass it again this year. However, the need continues to grow.”
Recent proposed cuts and non-renewal of programs set to expire in 2026 for multiple federal nutrition programs and food assistance programs are expected to negatively impact pantries, local farmers, as well as individuals and families who are food insecure.
“The simple fact is that our pantry cannot handle the volume we are seeing. Our home of the past 25 years lacks the space and capacity to process, store, and distribute enough food to meet the needs of so many people. We lack enough cold storage to store what we need between delivery times. The same goes for dry storage. Additionally, the lack of space increases our food costs in the long run because we cannot take full advantage of free and reduced-cost items available to us through the Good Shepherd Food Bank and it increases our labor costs due to constant restocking from a lack of shelf space,” the pantry wrote on its website in November about the move.
That hasn’t changed, but on Thursday, it was a moment to pause, to celebrate the move, the donations, and the work people had put in to make it possible.
LINKS TO LEARN AND DO. MORE:
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE FOOD PANTRY, CLICK HERE.
TO LEARN HOW YOU CAN HELP THE PANTRY, CLICK HERE.
TO VOLUNTEER, YOU CAN CLICK HERE.
TO DONATE, YOU CAN CLICK HERE.
Or BY MAIL by sending a check to P.O. Box 434 / Bar Harbor, ME 04609
Or IN-PERSON at the Pantry or Serendipity during open hours.
PANTRY OPEN HOURS:
Tuesday – 9:00 a.m – 2:00 p.m.
Wednesday – 9:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Thursday – 12 noon – 6:00 p.m.
Friday – 9:00 a.m. – 12:00 noon – Fresh Food Fridays
Photos by Shaun Farrar/Bar Harbor Story
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