The North Liberty Community Pantry is looking to raise $4 million to fund a new 10,500-square-foot facility to meet increased needs and the growing population in rural Johnson County.

The pantry has doubled the amount of food served and nearly doubled the number of families served since 2021, according to data collected by the pantry.

“So we have seen food insecurity rise dramatically in our community and amongst our neighbors over just the last two years,” Ryan Bobst, the pantry’s executive director, said. “Just the sheer volume of service that we’re doing is well beyond the physical capacity of the building.”

Currently, the pantry is located at 89 North Jones Boulevard in North Liberty on half an acre of land. The new site, at 350 West Penn Street in North Liberty, is three acres and 3.75 times bigger than the pantry’s current accommodations.

Bobst said at the current site, there is not enough food storage, requiring them to partner with local retailers like Fareway and Field Day Brewing to store food until they can make space at the pantry.

“With the new facility, that won’t be an issue,” Amanda Blair, the co-chair of the fundraising campaign for the pantry expansion, said. “We’ll have a significant amount of freezer and fridge storage space where we can easily accommodate those items when they’re brought to us and really expand our offerings to the families that are coming to shop with us.”

The new site is also more accessible to the pantry’s clients, Bobst said. The new site is closer to the heart of North Liberty and is on a bike path that runs through the city. Bobst said accessibility was important in considering a new site, with only 42 percent of the pantry’s users saying they had reliable transportation to the pantry.

Bobst said the new site will give the pantry more space to serve families with dignity by allowing them to shop for their food and for volunteer staff to have ample space to stock goods.

“This is going to be an efficient tool for us to better serve our neighbors experiencing food insecurity,” Bobst said. “We will have adequate and ample space to provide more variety of food options, to have more volume of food options, and to continue to treat families with dignity and respect.”

In addition to providing access to food, the pantry has a clothing closet that provides pantry users with free in-season clothing, Allison Bates, the fundraising campaign co-chair and former chair of the pantry’s board, said.

By expanding the site, it also allows the pantry to keep more stock of clothing items so that the pantry doesn’t have to redirect donations if it doesn’t have space.

It also means the pantry won’t ever have to turn away large donations from wholesalers because of a lack of space, Bates said.

The pantry will also have a dedicated space for the Johnson County Social Services Navigator to have office hours to help pantry users that come from all over Johnson County.

“We want to be able to expand so we can continue to work with families on other goals as well,” Bates said. “We’ll have intake offices to be able to interview families, talk to them, connect them with other resources, provide clothing and food under the same roof.”

So far, the pantry has raised over $600,000 and has approached the Johnson County Board of Supervisors for a grant of $100,000 toward the project.

The pantry has previously received grants from the county to restock food and buy more food, but Bobst said he is hopeful the county will be able to commit to investing in growing the pantry that serves the rural residents of Johnson County.

In addition to serving North Liberty, the pantry serves residents from Tiffin, Solon, Oxford, Hills, and other parts of rural Johnson County.