Dayton Food Pantry moves to new location

The Dayton Food Pantry will continue its mission of increasing food security from a new location at 209 Dayton Valley Road.

Healthy Communities Coalition of Lyon and Storey Counties, which operates the pantry, has moved from Highway 50 and Enterprise Way.

The new headquarters includes office space for staff, a number of storage buildings, a pavilion for events, and room for the pantry.

Volunteers of all ages helped to move the contents of the pantry last week.

Dayton High School’s varsity and junior varsity baseball teams and coaches moved freezers, refrigerators, and food boxes. Volunteers from the golf course neighborhood in Dayton loaned additional trucks needed for the move.

Members of the Dayton Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints moved pallets of canned food and office furniture. Dorothy Wingard, a local resident, brought homemade cupcakes for the volunteers.

The building on Enterprise Way where the pantry was previously located has been donated to Healthy Communities and will be moved to the Dayton Valley Road property later this spring.

The pantry’s hours of operation – 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday-Thursday – will stay the same at the new location, and the monthly distribution of USDA commodity food will continue to take place at Sutro Elementary School on the third Saturday of the month from noon to 3 p.m. The pantry will be closed on Monday.

Volunteers with Healthy Communities team with local schools to pack and deliver backpacks filled with food, providing an average of 125 K-12 students with weekend meals.

The pantry increases food security with help from volunteers and local clubs, nonprofits, businesses, churches, the USDA and Food Bank of Northern Nevada.

Additionally, Healthy Communities runs the Silver Stage Food Pantry, a volunteer-powered food pantry in Silver Springs, with plans to open another this spring in Yerington.

The pantries are part of a regional Healthy Food Hub that includes community and school gardens, cooking classes, Community Roots, farmers markets that accept WIC and EBT and gardening education programs.

For information about the Dayton Food Pantry, call Alie Trier at 775-246-7834. For more about the coalition, go to healthycomm.org.