Northampton Survival Center project goes public
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NORTHAMPTON - The Northampton Survival Center is moving closer to renovating and expanding its emergency food pantry now that it has crossed the halfway mark in its first capital campaign.
The 30-year-old center last year set a goal of raising $850,000 to fund a major overhaul of its cramped Prospect Street facility. Today, the center unveils preliminary designs for that expansion as its launches the next step in its fundraising campaign.
"The silent phase of our capital campaign took us beyond the midway point and, as we go public, I look forward to the community effort to reach the $850,000 goal to make this project a reality," said John P. DiBartolo, committee chairman.
The Northampton Survival Center is an emergency food provider and referral service serving 4,100 low-income people in 16 communities in Hampshire County each year. The center's food pantries in Northampton and Goshen distribute a daily average of more than 2,000 pounds of food with help from a six-person staff and 400 volunteers.
The center also runs a summer food program for children, providing groceries that bridge the summer nutrition gap for children who rely on subsidized meals during the school year.
But the center has been plagued by inadequate space to serve the growing needs of the region's hungry and its plans to expand programs have been hindered. Renovating and expanding the former Northampton Recreation Department building where it is housed will go a long way toward meeting the needs of low-income county residents for the next 30 years, said Heidi Nortonsmith, the center's director.
"The whole point in doing this is to get more food out to people," Nortonsmith said.
The center began operating out of the basement of the former Vernon Street School before moving to its current location in 1985. During the past two years, it has seen a 23-percent increase in the number of people seeking a monthly food package, which provides four days worth of food per person in a family each month.
Northampton city officials have been working with the center on the expansion project for well over a year, including providing a new 30-year lease agreement for the city-owned property.
"It's a vital service to the city and the region, and I'm thrilled that they'll be anchored here much longer and in a place that's suitable for them," Mayor Clare Higgins said.
Higgins will be among those speaking at today's 10 a.m. kick-off event at the center along with DiBartolo, Nortonsmith, Susan Mikula and television talk-show host Rachel Maddow, who are co-chairs of the campaign committee.
Andrew Moorehouse, executive director of the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, and John Ebbets, chief executive officer of the United Way of Hampshire County, also will be on hand with Survival Center board members. The United Way is a major contributor to the center's annual budget.
The preliminary design plans for the center's expansion were developed at no cost by Nelligan White Architects of New York, a firm co-owned by T. Michael White, who serves on the center's 15-seat board of directors.
The project calls for expanding the existing building by about 2,000 square feet, or nearly doubling the center's current space. Plans include reconfiguring the center's administrative offices, such as adding a seminar and workshop space to provide education for people on topics like economical food shopping and healthy meal preparation, according to Nortonsmith. The renovation also will include more private meeting spaces for clients seeking the center's services.
"It's not as respectful as we'd like it to be," Nortonsmith said.
The center's food pantry distribution and storage areas also will be expanded and reconfigured to make its services more efficient and organized - and to cut down on waiting periods for those using the center. The current distribution space has no air conditioning and there are times when dozens of people are waiting in lines for more than a hour.
"It's simply a physical bottleneck," Nortonsmith said. "The distribution process is inefficient. There's only so much food we can put into people's hands."
In addition to the distribution area, the center plans to create a more comfortable waiting and play area for children and a break space for its hundreds of volunteers. The new center also will be handicapped-accessible, something it is not today.
"It's just not acceptable for the kind of service we're in," Nortonsmith said.
To date, the center has raised approximately $483,000 to fund the expansion, money that has come mostly in the form of gifts and pledges. The biggest support for the center's expansion came last September when Richard Moodie, a food pantry volunteer and Northampton resident, gave the center a $200,000 check. The donation was the center's largest ever.
In addition to public support, Nortonsmith noted that all 13 members serving on the center's board also have donated to the capital campaign.
She said the pace of the center's public fundraising will determine when the organization is able to break ground on its new home. Those plans are tentatively eyed for this fall, she said.
Donations to the Northampton Survival Center's capital campaign can be made by calling 586-6564 or by emailing Heidi Nortonsmith at Heidi@TheNSC.org.
Dan Crowley can be reached at dcrowley@gazettenet.com.
