09/11/2026
For years, this building was anything but empty.
Every week, food came in and food went out. Volunteers carried boxes, filled tables, pushed carts, opened doors and welcomed neighbors. There was food from Gleaners, vegetables from Indy Urban Acres, donations from people who cared, and countless hours given by people who simply believed that nobody in their community should go hungry.
It wasn’t a fancy place.
But an awful lot of good happened in this place.
Today, it was empty.
With everything gone except Rick loading up the last few brooms and mops, I stood there for a minute and took this picture. No food. No tables. No volunteers. No neighbors waiting at the door.
Just an empty room.
And I realized how much I’m going to miss it.
The Old Bethel and Partners Food Pantry is closing this chapter, but thankfully, not its story.
In a few months, we’ll open the doors to an incredible new pantry at Common Ground at Faith . We’ll carry the work with us—the people, the relationships, the lessons learned, and the simple belief that no one in our community should go hungry.
Someday soon, that new room will be noisy and crowded. There will be boxes everywhere. Someone will be looking for a cart. Someone will be asking where the potatoes go. And neighbors will be walking through the doors again.
And this old room will just be a memory.
But what happened here won’t be.
