“We decided to bring the food shelf to the next level,” said board member Bob Parent. ” We asked our customers what they would like to have in a food shelf.”
Parent said the answers revolved mainly around the experience clients could have in picking out the food they needed or wanted most for their families.
Over the last six months, a major renovation has re-shaped the food shelf experience into more of an open-market feel, giving clients a chance to browse and examine the guidelines the food shelf put in place for how much of each kind of food each family could get each visit.
“You can come right through the space and you’re not running into a bunch of walls, you’re not banging into each other’s carts,” said Parent. “It’s wide open. The flow is open.”
Kraus-Anderson and Aid Electric are among the companies that helped make the vision reality.
“With the people that were in place, it was the right time,” said Parent. “We took those resources we’ve been putting away for a long time, (and) we made it happen.”
The new layout will be on display for a public open house on December 4. Clients have already been shopping in the new space for a few weeks.
“People are in a tough spot, (and) we want to really respect that they’re here,” said Parent. “We really want to let them really take advantage of what the food shelf has to offer.”
