Written by Eli Cohn-Wein
Tomorrow we move.
Today, we’re open.
That probably sounds like bad planning, but it’s actually the most “us” thing we could have done. We’ve got appointments on the books, we’ve got volunteers ready to go, and frankly the idea of closing a day early when people need food felt worse than the chaos of doing both things at once. So: full distribution today, then this afternoon we start pulling everything off the shelves, and by noon tomorrow the old pantry is empty.
We’re also still sending out our truck.
Here’s the wrinkle: we can’t receive our usual retail rescue pickups at the new building this week — it’s not ready for that yet. But canceling five thousand pounds worth of food pickups wasn’t really on the table either. So instead, our drivers are going out to Walmart and Tom Thumb and Kroger and the rest of our partners, loading up like normal, and then turning around and delivering all of it directly to another food pantry in the North Texas Food Bank network. The food still moves. People still eat.
And it’s not just the pantry finding additional ways to help. I’ve been sitting in on planning meetings for the move, and more than once I’ve watched our clinicians and caseworkers — people who, by any reasonable measure, could treat this two-week stretch as a breather — start asking about remote sessions, check-ins, ways to stay connected with their clients during the gap. It just seems to be the instinct around here.
The new building is going to be great. More space, better setup, more ways to help those who need it most in our community. But I want to be clear about something: the impulse to send the trucks out anyway, to open up for distribution on moving day, to keep showing up for people even when the calendar says you don’t have to — that didn’t come from the new building. It’s been here the whole time. We’re just bringing it with us.
Anyway. Today the doors are open. Tonight the shelves come down. And somewhere across Dallas, five thousand pounds of groceries are already on their way to someone who needs them.
Not a bad last day.
