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| 119-121 E. 95th St |
This building has been vacant perhaps for over a year it was formerly home to an insurance company, and for many years before that it used to be a Trailways bus depot until that company got bought out by Greyhound. Of course that was at least back in the 1990s. Now it has another hat:
Endeleo Institute, a community group in the majority-Black Washington Heights and Roseland neighborhoods on the city’s Far South Side, received a grant that will allow it to open a food pantry at 119-121 E. 95th St., in a 3,500-square-foot building that once housed an insurance business.
“It’s going to be nothing like a traditional food pantry,” said Executive Director Melvin Thompson. “We really want to dignify the space, to destigmatize this.”
It will be a choice pantry, where people can select what they want. The plan is to offer cooking demonstrations, nutrition education and a financial opportunity center to help people with budgeting.
The building sits on a 12,000-square-foot lot and the hope is to eventually bring a mobile pharmacy to fill a gap left by the closure of several neighborhood pharmacies over the years, Thompson said.
“We really want to take advantage of people coming through the door and fortifying them beyond food but with things that will help them along the way,” Thompson said. He expects to serve 500 to 1,000 people weekly.
West Chesterfield and Roseland Heights Community Associations will partner with Endelo who is affiliated with Trinity Church further west on 95th Street per an e-mail that was forwarded to me.
The main thing is those who aren't able to put food on the table will have somewhere else to go to fill their pantries in their homes.
