Luverne City Council members toured a vacant building on West Maple Street last week as a possible new home for the Rock County Food Shelf.
The brick building at 202 W. Maple decades ago served as a dental office and in recent years fell into disrepair.
The city of Luverne purchased the property in 2017 for $36,000 and the blighted lot next door (on the corner near NAPA Automotive) for $32,500.
The corner lot was razed and seeded with grass, and the brick building was deemed in solid shape and added to the city’s stock of property for potential development.
An idea for its use came to light in recent weeks after the pandemic economy increased local demand at the food shelf.
For decades the food shelf has operated out of the basement of the United Methodist Church, and according to director Mary Gehrke, it’s always been a tight fit.
But now more people are using the food shelf, and the pandemic requires fewer people and more spaced apart. This has created additional stresses on an organization that already leans on volunteers and donations.
Gehrke said she’s excited about the prospect of the food shelf having its own building.
“The church has been very good to us, but we’re hard on their elevator and we have our stuff everywhere,” she said.
“A place like this would be more accessible on one level and it has a garage door that we could run a truck right in for unloading.”
The 40-by-46-foot building is about 50 percent bigger than the current location and would allow for coolers to accept meat, produce and dairy donations.
“We get offers of meat all the time, but we can’t accept them because we don’t have cooler space,” Gehrke said. “We provide grocery store vouchers for dairy and produce items.”
She said the Maple Street location will offer both accessibility and privacy for families.
“This is a nice location,” she said.
According to Mayor Pat Baustian, the building is gutted and the roof needs repairs.
In order to make it move-in ready for the food shelf, city staff estimate costs up to $220,000.
“No, it’s not in the budget, but if we do a fundraiser, this is a great use of a public building,” Baustian said.
Gehrke and city staff will meet with the Luverne Area Community Foundation to set up a fundraising campaign to support the project. The goal will be to raise $250,000 which allow extra for equipment and shelving.
Baustian said the city’s relationship with the food shelf would be similar to its arrangements with other non-profit organizations that operate in city properties like the Palace Theatre, Redbird Field and Blue Mound Ice Arena.
He estimated the roof could be replaced by Jan. 1 and inside improvements could continue through the winter.
The new venture can’t happen soon enough for food shelf operators seeing a deluge of local demand.
“We used to have weeks with 10 to 12 families, but now we’re seeing weeks with 27 and 30 families,” Gehrke said. “We’re ordering much more often from Second Harvest.”
Baustian’s wife, Katie Baustian, has been assisting Gehrke at the food shelf, and that’s how Mayor Baustian said he became aware of the space constraints and demand for services.
“It really opened my eyes to the need out there,” he said.