Food bank managers seek new quarters

The Helping Hand Food Bank is looking for a new home.

For several years, the food bank has been housed in the River Rat Tap building, built in 1890, but the old tavern is beginning to look like it has soaked up too much of what had been its biggest product. It has begun to lean and sag and the floor has a very definite slope.

After a recent windstorm, the front door will no longer open all the way. A crack is beginning to spread along a beautifully painted mural and the 90 degree angles throughout the building are disappearing.

Ben Moor, the pastor for the Cathlamet Seventh Day Adventist Church, is also the president for Helping Hand. He and the site manager for the food bank, Mary Dasher, knew there was a problem late in 2014, when all the little shifts began to increase. They knew it was time to find a new home.

“This is a real hardship,” Moor said, “but overall we’ve got good things in the works.”

Volunteers have already begun to pack, and a possible solution has availed itself, but it is too early for details or certainties, so organizers are still looking.

For now, Dasher, who has been volunteering with the food bank for 20 years, is grateful.

“This place was such a blessing,” she said.

The Helping Hand philosophy is to help anyone, regardless of their economic circumstances. It was this philosophy that first drew Moor. Helping Hand wants to continue to be of service to the community, filling a niche that other food banks don’t.

“We aren’t interested in how much money people make. We aren’t interested in creating a demeaning experience,” Moor said. “If you are hungry, we are here to help.”

“This is such a wonderful service for people in the community,” Derek Phipps, a volunteer at the food bank said on Tuesday.