Scott Swanson
Sweet Home Emergency Ministries volunteers are enjoying some massive upgrades to the aid organization’s headquarters on Long Street, but thanks to the coronavirus shutdown, clients aren’t – right now, anyway.
Last week, Board Member Tom Toth was sitting outside the front door, under a pop-up as rain descended, registering recipients for that day’s distribution of food.
Though coronavirus precautions limit who can be in the building, behind Toth was, essentially, a brand-new facility for the organization, which has been handling much of Sweet Home’s charitable outreach since it was founded 40 years ago, in 1980.
Much of that effort has taken place in facilities that were, in a word, “cramped” as Board Secretary Sharon Arthur put it.
“It was crowded,” she said. “Many days we had way too many people coming in the front door.”
Carmen’s Closet, SHEM’s clothing depository, was so packed that it was “hard to dig through,” she said.
Linda Fincher, who manages that aspect of SHEM’s outreach, was the only one who really knew where to find specific items, Arthur said,
Not any more.
“It’s 100 percent better,” she said.
That is the result of 7½ months of work by Toth and Jeff Young, who provided much of the volunteer labor in the massive remodel that combined the former Lee’s Appliance and American Legion building at 1115 Long St., which SHEM purchased in 2010 with the former Cascade Gunworks at 1113 Long St., which the organization purchased in 2016.
“It was a tremendous amount of work,” said Toth, a retired building contractor. “Jeff and I both have around 700-plus hours in the project. It turned out really well.”
He said SHEM had already purchased the gun shop by the time he joined the Board of Directors, but “it was just kind of sitting. There was no direction.”
Toth said the “project” was his motivation for joining the board.
He drew up plans, submitted them to the city, and went to work in July of last year.
The building, built in 1937, and which was once a bank, had challenges.
“The first miracle was, it being the era building that it was, we had to do lead testing, said Food Pantry Manager Cindy Rice. “It came up negative. None.”
Benefactor Eva Benson had left SHEM a little over $21,000 to do the project.
“I did a lot of calculations and said, ‘I think we can do it and come in on budget,'” Toth said.
Help came from all sides.
He got a discount on materials from Home Depot, and local electrician Dennis Barnhart of DCB Electric donated more than 100 hours to wire the building.
Then Dave Hoodenpile, one of Toths fellow church members at Cornerstone church, was able to procure a heating and air conditioning system at less than a third the cost they’d been quoted for installation.
“We had quotes of up to $17,000,” Toth said. “Jeff and I installed it ourselves and Henson Heating charged it and set it up for us for free.”
They installed drywall themselves, then hired a professional provided by First String Construction to do the finish work.
He and Young put in the framing and wires for a dropped ceiling, and Dean Morrow, a local suspended ceiling contractor, brought his son and grandson and installed the actual ceiling at no cost.
“I was shocked,” Toth said.
“We came in on budget,” he said, noting that the board gave him an extra $2,000, not all of which was needed.
The outcome was a building nearly double the size of the old appliance store building, which now houses the food pantry – with expanded aisles, two sets of doors connecting the two sides, an office with three desks to replace the former one-desk arrangement, a meeting room named after Benson, a one-time bank vault with 20-inch concrete walls that houses records and equipment, and a streamlined food delivery process. The space in Carmen’s Closet, a room where clothing and other supplies are stored, is triple what it was previously.
“I like the vault myself,” said volunteer Linda Fincher, who is the acknowledged leader of the clothing operation. ” It’s so cool, those 20-inch walls.”
Toth said his goal throughout the entire operation was to “create a flow.
“Before, they used to get 12 or 15 people crowded in there.”
“We had to set up extra chairs like a bus along the cart line,” Rice said. “That doesn’t happen now. There are no bottlenecks.”
The job was finished in late February, and clients actually got to enter the building – before the coronavirus shutdown ended that for the time being.
It was a relief for SHEM personnel to see the project finished.
“When he showed me the occupancy permit, I had a rush of emotion,” said Rice, who’s been involved with SHEM for about 25 years, and who has seen the organization move several times over that period. “It’s finally happening, something of this magnitude to finally change everything. It’s very uplifting and encouraging.”
“It’s so much better,” said Sharon Toth, who’s been volunteering with SHEM for some five years – “I’m the greeter. I’m the first one (clients) meet.
“We have room to sit, room for people to wait. We can talk and get along. Nobody’s irritated because we’re not kicking each other in the shins. They love it.”
Arthur said the aisles in the old facility were so narrow that two food carts traveling in opposite directions couldn’t pass each other.
“There’s more storage and it’s a whole lot easier to move,” she said, adding “that is really helping us with the virus. It’s easier to stay 6 feet apart.”
Rice said the remodel has been a “huge, huge” improvement.
“Just having extra space means we can serve people more efficiently and have confidential space to great people. Also, having an office where (other) people can’t hear their story is huge too.”
Instead of chairs with waiting clients crowded along the aisles on distribution days, she said, “the clients really appreciate not having to sit on top of each other, not having to sit outside. That’s another plus of extra space.”
SHEM had planned to have an open house to show off the improvements on April 30, but due to the coronavirus, that’s been postponed indefinitely, Rice said.
Tom Toth manned a desk under a pop-up outside the new entryway last week, greeting clients who arrived for a food distribution and giving them numbered cards that they took to a distribution table in the old City Hall parking lot behind the building, to get groceries.
Since supplies have been limited, Rice said, distributions have gone to “six to eight families per day, three days a week” since the coronavirus scare began.
“It’s been a process of evolution over each day to make things better, a little more safe,” she said.
The Rotary Club has donated a box full of 1,000 Easter eggs with goodies inside that SHEM can distribute to children waiting for food in vehicles with their parents.
“The kids come through in cars and they’re worried and scared, fractious, fighting,” Rice said. “They are so excited to have something for them that has good memories attached. That’s a nugget for that little kid.”
She said SHEM is short of volunteers, but can’t accept new recruits until the coronavirus restrictions end.
Both SHEM and the building project are the result of unsung efforts contributed by many, Rice said.
“There are a lot of huge-hearted people in this community helping out in ways that people take for granted.
“We were blessed, the way the community came alongside and helped the whole way. It was an incredible journey, watching things come together.”
For information on volunteering with SHEM, call (541) 367-6504 or visit http://www.shemfoodbank.org.