Lowell’s First Look: FROM Expands Food Pantry Services to Fill Community Gaps
Neighbors to the west of Lowell are now eligible for food assistance from one of the community’s most charitable resources.
Flat River Outreach Ministries recently expanded its food pantry service area to serve families who may not have access to nutrition assistance elsewhere. All who reside in the 49331 area code as well as areas of Ada, Alto, and Forest Hills can now request to utilize FROM’s pantry twice a month.
Kelly Glas, FROM Program Lead, said the expansion was made as a result of gaps in the areas that local pantries were covering.
“There’s these areas that we call ‘dead zones.’ It just means that the folks living within that zone didn’t have a pantry to go to, and we felt that we had the bandwidth to expand a little bit outside of our area in order to have a quality pantry that people could (use),” Glas explained.
Though FROM is confident it has the space and staffing to accommodate the expansion, they still need support from the community for the food itself. FROM Executive Director Wendie Preiss said it may take a bit of time to make the new expansion area aware of their services and gain the needed support from local businesses and churches.
