Franklin Food Pantry Purchases Building to Expand Services

The Pantry Looks to Renovate a Bigger Franklin Space to Better Serve Its Neighbors

Today (Apr 27, 2020) the Franklin Food Pantry announced that it has purchased a building to be able to better serve its neighbors. The building formerly known as Dante’s Motors, Inc. is located on 138 East Central Street and will undergo renovations to make it into a functional and expanded Pantry.

The new building will allow The Franklin Food Pantry to increase safety, accessibility, confidentiality and robustness of its current services and help The Pantry to develop new services to better fulfill the full mission of the Franklin Food Pantry. The Pantry will announce a Capital Campaign later in the year to help fund the renovations of the new space. In the meantime, The Pantry will continue to operate at its current location and appreciates the Support of Rockland Trust.

“For the past three years, The Franklin Food Pantry has been searching for a bigger space to be able to increase our assistance to our community. We are so thankful to Rockland Trust for loaning us our space and taking such good care of us over the past ten years, but we have outgrown the building,” said Lynn Calling, Executive Director of the Franklin Food Pantry. “Through the generosity of our Board members and close friends of The Pantry we were finally able to make this happen. Because of the commitment of the Board - as volunteers, donors, and advisors - we have been able to secure a mortgage for this property.”

Lynn Calling, Executive Director, stands in front of the future home

“We are so grateful for the incredible outpouring of support from our community as we meet increased demand due to Covid-19 and we are happy to be able to bring some good news to them,” said Tina Powderly, Board President. “This endeavor has been a long time coming and we’d like to thank community member Christine Bracci who worked with us so closely to help create a lasting legacy for her family’s business and to ensure the growth of the pantry.”

“This building has been in my family for a long time, and I’m so glad that I was able to work with the Franklin Food Pantry to give the building new life and another chance to serve the Franklin Community,” said Christine Bracci, previous owner. “I would like to thank my attorney Michael Heaney, Heaney and Small LLP for his help with making this deal possible.”

During the pandemic, the Franklin Food Pantry continues to operate to serve all new and existing neighbors. The Pantry has changed its hours to Tuesdays and Fridays from 9:30 AM to 12:30 PM and 1:30 PM to 4:00 PM. The Pantry is distributing prepackaged bags of shelf stable items as well as fresh produce and proteins through a drive up service. Since March, the Pantry has seen a weekly increase of new neighbors needing to receive services and all donations have gone toward continuing to feed its patrons.

About the Franklin Food Pantry

The Franklin Food Pantry offers supplemental food assistance and household necessities to over 1,100 individuals. Clients have access to a variety of fresh, frozen and nonperishable foods on monthly scheduled shopping trips as well as Walk-in Fridays. They can visit the Pantry daily for fruits, vegetables, bread and pastry. As a nonprofit organization, the Pantry depends entirely on donations, and receives no town or state funding. In 2019, 302,336 pounds of food was provided to clients. Other programs include the Weekend Backpack Program, Carts for Clients, Mobile Pantry, emergency food bags and holiday meal packages. Visit www.franklingfoodpantry.org for more information.