New building for the North Elba Food Pantry and Thrift Shop

NORTH ELBA | A newly constructed building scheduled to open by November will house the food pantry and recently closed thrift shop. The Lake Placid Ecumenical Food Pantry, now in the basement of St. Agnes Church, will move to the 3,000-square-foot building to be built aside from the Shipman Youth Center off Cummings Road. The $850,000 project will be built atop the basketball courts, which will be relocated. It will be paid for by fundraising and North Elba's Local Enhancement and Advancement Fund. North Elba Town Supervisor Derek Doty says the new building will be easier for folks, as they will not need to lug food down the steps into the basement and back up again. Jim Koenig, pastor at the Lake Placid Baptist Church, an organization that originally helped start the food pantry, reportedly said the new facility will help them to expand and better serve the community. Serving some 60 households every Friday, in 2023 it supplied 34,500 pounds of food or 29,000 meals. The Helping Hands Thrift Shop, run by Lake Placid's Ecumenical Charity Program, which closed last November due to its building becoming dilapidated, will also move in. Doty says the thrift shop will now have access to garage doors, enabling it to now sell furniture, in addition to clothing and other items. "There's a definite need" for both entities to help those "struggling to get by." The Lake Placid Central School District Board of Education recently voted to donate more than one acre of land the building will be built on to the town rather than lease it. Timothy Seymour, the LPCSD superintendent, reportedly said this is meant to ensure the longevity of the food pantry and thrift shop in the community. But the voters must approve this property transfer in a special election scheduled on Monday, June 24 from 2-8 p.m. in the Lake Placid Elementary School cafeteria and the Wilmington town offices. A fundraiser for the food pantry will be held on Sunday, May 19, from 4:30-7:30 p.m., at Mr. Mike's Pizza located at 2742 Main Street STE 1, Lake Placid. Suggested donations are $20 for adults and $12 for children. Credit cards are not accepted. Cash or checks accepted made payable to Ecumenical Food Pantry. Online donations can be made at ADF.Fcsuite.com/erp/donate. Checks can be mailed to the Adirondack Foundation at P.O. Box 288, Lake Placid, NY 12946. Put Lake Placid Food Pantry in the memo. For more information, send an email to StagnesLPOutreach@Gmail.com. Doty says, "I hope everyone comes out to vote and donates" to the food pantry.

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New building for the North Elba Food Pantry and Thrift Shop

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