Beloved Berkeley Food Pantry Closes After 56 Years

BERKELEY, CA — The Berkeley Food Pantry has closed after serving two East Bay communities for more than half a decade.

“It’s incredibly sad,” Marice Ash, who has volunteered at the pantry every Wednesday for three and a half years, told KQED. “It just feels like a very mutual, self-help community coming together. I’m going to miss it … and people need this. That’s hard, too, knowing that we’re closing when there’s so much need.”

The pantry has operated out of the Berkeley Friends Church in North Berkeley since 1969, but its operations have expanded beyond its capacities, according to a report from KQED.

Plans were originally in place to band forces with the Berkeley Food Network, which would oversee the distribution program at the church site. But negotiations between the two sides fell through, and with it, the end of the Berkeley Food Pantry, according to the report.

“It has been our privilege to serve the Berkeley and Albany communities for the past 56 years, and we regret that we are unable to continue,” the Berkeley Food Pantry said in a statement online.

The organization has linked to other places where people may find good alternative grocery sources. It can be found here.

Read more from KQED.