Christian Appalachian Project’s Grateful Bread Food Pantry and Grateful Threadz Gently Used Clothing Store moved early in January to a new location.  This new facility is still in Rockcastle County, but is now on the main road in town and offers much more space for product displays and storage.

“Participants love it,” says Peggy Hancock, Program Manager.  The new location gives participants more pride in the store.  “We want participants to come in and feel like they are shopping in a nice department store or supermarket.”  Women from CAP’s Healing Rain program work in the stores throughout the week creating display cases and organizing inventory.

While these are great perks of the new site, the biggest reason for the move was safety.  Many of the program participants are elderly and individuals with disabilities.  Our past location was built on an incline.  The parking lot was difficult to walk up, let alone direct a cart of groceries and clothing to your vehicle.  At times, participants would lose grip on the cart and it would roll down the slope.  At the new facility, the parking lot is flat which allows for an easier exit, but also better access for deliveries.

At the previous location, there was no loading dock for food and clothing drop-offs.  This became quite a challenge when trucks would come with surplus food for donation to the pantry.  The length of time it would take to unload a delivery would be much longer than expected due to the lack of accessibility.  The new loading dock allows for quicker, easier drop-offs of essentials such as food and clothing.

We are excited about the opportunities to serve those who come to this new facility.  We hope to reach those who have gone unreached and pray we’ll have enough to provide.  Please join with us in a prayer for our new site and the families, children, and seniors whom we are blessed to serve.