NTFB Grant Supports Kaufman Christian Help Center in Serving More Neighbors

The partner pantry added a walk-in freezer and an exterior awning to better serve the community.

At one point, food at Kaufman Christian Help Center was being stored in 18 residential chest freezers.

Demand for grocery assistance has continued to grow at the North Texas Food Bank partner in Kaufman County and Executive Director Richard Dunn says they were doing what they could to continue meeting the need.

Now, with the support of a $71,175 NTFB grant and the nonprofit’s own fundraising, the Center has a 15- by-16-foot walk-in freezer that can store enough food for the more than 500 families they are serving each month.

“It has just been fantastic,” Richard says. “When I first got here in 2017, we averaged 190 families per month. Now, we’re at 500 per month, and we also do mobile pantry distributions.”

Knowing they were growing quickly, Richard says the Center and its board spent a lot of time in recent years reviewing their facility and determining if a move was needed. Their current building is paid off and is in a great, accessible location for the community, Richard says. So instead of relocating, they decided to upgrade the pantry in phases.

Phase 1 included some interior remodeling as well as the addition of an outside awning, supported by NTFB’s grant, that cleaned up the look of the building while giving neighbors some shade and cover from the weather when they are waiting in line to enter the pantry.

Phase 2 consisted of the new walk-in freezer. Phase 3, which they’re working on in the coming months, will include a small building expansion and the addition of a receiving dock for food deliveries. The expansion will move the offices to the back and create more warehouse space for food storage.

Richard says the growth of the facility matches the demand he expects will only continue to increase as the population in Kaufman County grows and families grapple with higher costs for housing, groceries and other necessities. Between 2022 and 2023, the latest data available, Kaufman County was the fastest growing county in Texas.

“We could be seeing 600 families a month by the end of the year,” he says.

Along with providing access to more food, the Center aims to expand its holistic supports that address the underlying barriers to food security. Richard says they’re kicking off financial literacy and job skills classes, some of which will be conducted off-site. As they continue improving their building, the hope is to move all services on-site so they’re easily accessible to neighbors.

To read more about NTFB’s grant program, visit ntfb.org/about-us.