Dayton Food Bank finds temporary shelter

The Dayton Food Bank will relocate after its food giveaway on Thursday because of planned construction work on the Dayton Community Center, its current location.

Volunteers for the food bank filled the Dayton Regional Advisory Council on Wednesday evening to discuss where to relocate. Local business owner Phil Cowey offered a 1,125-square-foot space for the interim.

Volunteers will begin to move the food to the temporary space today. A food giveaway will be held at the Community Center on April 15.

Lyon County officials have been planning for months to repair the building and hired a contractor in December using grant money from the State Historical Society. The building has structural integrity problems, too, raising liability issues if an earthquake were to happen, for example.

Because of the structural concerns, food bank organizers tried to limit the number of people allowed inside to 20 at a time, but that became harder to do as demand for the service grew.

The Lyon County unemployment rate is nearing

20 percent. Last month, the food bank served 830 people, up from an average of 250 in early 2009.

Organizers briefly worried on Wednesday that they would be forced to move by today, but Lyon County Engineer Richard Fader said the contractor will delay work until late next week, giving them time to move all of the food to their new location, which has not been disclosed.

"We probably had a misunderstanding," said Christy McGill, director of Healthy Communities Coalition. "We thought we had until May to get into someplace."

McGill added that the food bank could work out of multiple locations in the Dayton area.

"Right now it's daunting for one church to take the whole thing," McGill said. "So maybe the long term ... we can work with some of our local churches and even some of our local businesses so we can divide the food bank up, put it on different days so it's not as overwhelming."

As for the community center, the plan is to eventually host DRAC meetings and other community events there when the construction is completed, Stark said.

"We won't necessarily allow (the food bank) back into the Dayton Community Center to the capacity they are now," he said.

For any questions about the food bank, e-mail

coordinator Freida Carbery at freedaca@aol.com.