History of The Food Pantry of Alpine Timeline:
Beginning in 2009
Inspired by Jan Moeller, a group of concerned citizens representing various entities gathered to discuss the need. We elected officers: Fr. John Medvick of Holy Cross Anglican Church was our first president.
Spring of 2009
Worked on By-Laws and policies – applied for 501 (3) (c) status through the state with the help of Eve Trook, a local attorney.
That Spring & Summer, we raised start-up funds, secured a facility (Education Building at OLP (corner of South 6th and West Gallego), and developed policies. The board also volunteered at the Food Pantry of Jeff Davis County to see how they operated.
Midsummer 2009
Received 501 (3) (c) status through Texas, sent it to Washington, DC for recognition status
October 2009
Our first distribution of 70 allotments
Summer of 2010
Added in distributions to Marathon and Terlingua
October 2010
Stopped distributions to Terlingua – due to transportation and expense issues (80 lots); another non-profit currently distributes there.
Spring 2011
The Board of Directors decided that the FPA needs to have its own facility due to the lack of space and storage at OLP and received a donation to purchase land.
Summer 2011
Began negotiations with West Texas Food Bank to build on their land in West Alpine
October 2011
2nd anniversary – and we had our first distribution at the WTFB, which is allowing us to store and use its facilities until we complete our building/annex
November 2011
We served 235 families for a total of 477 individuals, with 10 new applications for commodities. FPA’s distributions average 204 families for 432 individuals. We have, on average, 350 households with 738 individuals registered in Alpine and 70 households with 167 individuals in Marathon—for a total of 420 households/ 905 individuals in northern Brewster County—a 500% growth in clients in two years. We remained at the WTFB building for 4 years.
2016
We moved to a building at 108 1/2 S. Neville Haynes Rd. to have additional space and are currently open on 5 separate days of the month, allowing us to reach more of the community in need.
2021
In September, we moved to our present location at 933 East Gallego Avenue. This is our first wholly-owned building!
