For many years now The ROC Food Pantry has desired to purchase the building that we have operated out of, but has struggled to come up with the funding required to make that happen. This has hampered our efforts at times to raise funds to make significant remodels, since it is challenging to find grantors willing to invest in making improvements on a property not owned by the organization they intend to help. Our additional desire has been to purchase an emergency generator (approximately $20k) to support us through the power outages that often attend the summer wildfire season, as well as paving our parking lot (approximately $10k). We would also like to remodel the interior of our facility to improve its functionality and broaden the services we might offer (approximately $30k). Last summer we were given the opportunity to apply for funds allocated to the county through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA). As you may have read in the Grants Pass Daily Courier on Friday, November 26th, it appears that we have been awarded a large portion of what we asked for! Praise God!
What does this mean? Well, it means that we will be finally able to fulfill our dream to purchase the very building that we have been operating out of for the last decade and make about half of our desired improvements. Those funds were designated before they were even granted and we are blessed. But what it doesn’t mean is that our cost of overhead and doing business has changed in any way. We cannot use these funds for anything other than what we intend in our request for them, and that’s good. Consequently we still have the tough monthly challenges of covering the costs associated with food, refrigeration, sanitation, vehicles, and staffing, so we still need your help!
If you are a regular donor to the ROC, let me say “Thank you!” Because you give, we can give to those in need in Josephine County. You are the means of Gods blessing to thousands of individuals every month who need a helping hand and reliably good food! If you have never considered giving before, would you consider doing so now? We can always use the help and with the challenges we have all faced over the last two years, we recognize just how uncertain the future can be.
Now more than ever, we can really use your support.