Proposed Food Bank Expansion

Congregational Membership Vote

DCC Congregational Meeting
Date: 6/14/09
A congregational meeting was held to further discuss and conduct a vote on the proposed expansion of the Food Bank. The following resolution was presented to the congregation:
Resolution: On June 14, 2009, Dillon Community Church members approve the expenditure of up to $65,000 for the expansion of the Food Bank portion of the parsonage structure. This amount is in addition to the normal operating budgets for the 8/9 and 9/10 ministry years.

Vote Results: Yes 62 No 11

Submitted by Rich Bender

Why a new foodbank?

The DCC food bank has seen unprecedented growth in the last 12 months. With an increase in people served of something like 300% from last year, we must acknowledge the opportunity we have to go passionately into a significant need in our community. We need to expand our food bank. The two main reasons are:

• The Spiritual dimension. When visitors come, our goal is to pray with each one and deal as much with their spiritual and emotional needs as their physical needs. There simply isn't room.
• Sheer size. If we are going to expand to provide space for the spiritual needs, adding much needed storage space for the church and the food bank is a logical benefit.

The space need will be solved with close to 1000 additional sq ft (400 sq ft in the food bank itself, and over 500 sq ft in storage space above). Please view the PDF files of the drawings to see what the expansion will look like. The primary need is as or more important than the second. With such a small space and such a long line, there isn't room to talk and pray with visitors in an environment that still allows space for a line of people to wait indoors (inclement weather defines most of our year in Summit County) during our hours.

Pending approval from the Town of Dillon and all county permitting processes, a tentative schedule for construction would be to begin breaking ground soon. We would move all of the refrigeration into the Commons area soon after our move to the Amphitheater this summer and continue to run the food bank out of the main building while construction proceeds. Tim Seeling has been amazing with doing the drawings and getting as much of the "back end" details handled in advance, so when construction begins we should be able to complete it before we return from the Amphitheater this summer, minimizing the impact on our "in-season" building use.

We know that Summit County's need for financial and material support will not decrease in the next several years, so the visits to our food bank will almost certainly increase. In Summit County, the Dillon Community Church food bank is quickly becoming one of the primary sources of support. With such a strategic outreach, we need to expand.

If you have questions about the food bank expansion project, please email Jude Mitchell at jude@dillonchurch.org

You can also DOWNLOAD THE MP3 of Sunday's congregational meeting. (14.6MB mp3. We recommend you Right Click and SAVE TO DESKTOP or DOWNLOAD LINKED FILE instead of playing in your browser.)