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Frisco Family Services pantry moving to larger location
By Anthony Tosie, atosie@starlocalnews.com
The Frisco Family Services Center offers many programs to area residents in need, such as adult education classes and emergency assistance referrals. An area the organization is perhaps making the biggest impact in, however, is its food distribution services and pantry.
Because of the pantry's growing needs, the organization is moving it to a new, larger location next month -- which coincidentally is also National Hunger Awareness Month. The pantry will now be located at 9085 Dogwood St., the location of the old Frisco Resale store.
In addition to being much larger, the organization's new pantry will also set itself apart from other food pantries in one key way: it operates like a store instead of a food pantry.
"We're very proud of this," Klarin said. "Unlike a lot of food pantries, we don't hand out bags and boxes of food. We're trying to keep it very natural -- we have a super market-style pantry where clients can select the foods they will eat and their families will eat to help them maintain their energy and keep them fed."
The new location will allow the pantry to have more clients inside at once. At the pantry's current location, only three clients are able to get food and other items at a time.
"We've been very confined by the physical space of our current food pantry," Klarin said. "The new location [will let] more individuals shop at one time. It allows us to distribute more food to those who need it when they need it instead of them having to wait because there are so many people using the food pantry."
In a statement, Nicole Bursey, executive director of Frisco Family Services, said the new pantry will be a welcome addition to the organization's services.
"The new space will triple the size of the current food pantry, enabling us to more effectively and efficiently serve clients using the food pantry," Bursey said. "With the increased shelf and refrigeration space and the move to a more visible location, we anticipate that the demand for food pantry services will increase."
All the items in the pantry are donated by residents and local organizations. Additionally, Frisco ISD schools provide food from an annual food drive that benefits the pantry. Because Frisco Family Services includes Frisco ISD residents, it also serves some members of Plano, Little Elm and McKinney.
In addition to food items, the pantry also offers personal hygiene products such as shampoo, soap and deodorant. Other products typically not offered by food pantries are also available.
"We're very proud we're able to provide folks with perishable goods like milks, eggs and frozen produce and meats," Klarin said. "It's all about keeping [our clients] healthy."
Local businesses and organizations have been vital to the pantry's success, Klarin said. Many local restaurants are partnering with Frisco Family Services to provide a portion of their sales on Sept. 13 to the pantry as part of its "Feed Frisco" campaign.
"Feed Frisco not only involves our restaurants, but also local businesses and retail entities if they want to get on board and help us," Klarin explained. "It can even be a homeowners association or a church group getting together and providing a food drive."
Klarin said the pantry's success wouldn't be possible without the help it receives from the community.
"This would not be possible without those who support us -- we're very grateful for the community support," she said. "We have a number of partners who support us. Stonebriar's been a big community partner, and we have individuals out there in the community who have contributed to ensure that folks who need food in the community are able to sustain. I'm always amazed at the amount of people who step up when we need help, especially our volunteers who make this happen."
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