This year, the Storehouse is marking 40 years as a community resource in New Mexico. Today, we are the state’s largest food pantry, supporting over 55,000 people annually, but our beginnings were pretty humble.
In 1976, Titus and Charlotte Scholl, a local pastor and his wife, realized that too many people in Albuquerque were going hungry. Instead of standing by, they took it upon themselves to do something to help. They spoke to friends and family, gathered collections and began to distribute food out of the trunk of their car and occasionally their own garage. Many years later, when the Storehouse found its current home near the corner of Central and Broadway in downtown Albuquerque, the Storehouse was supporting close to 10,500 families.
The couple, and eventually a team of volunteers, survived entirely on community support and the generous contributions of food and resources they were able to gather. As a truly charitable organization, we still are almost entirely dependent every month on the generosity of community members to remain in operation. We rely heavily on individual gifts, which make up more than half of the donations received by the Storehouse. Corporate gifts, foundations, and faith-based donors are also vital. That’s why your support is still important today. In fact, with a struggling economy and a shortage of full-time jobs, the Storehouse is more in demand than it’s ever been. In 2015, we provided food and/or clothing to 55,025 people and a total of 2,802,888 meals.
The Scholl family wasn’t especially well known or wealthy, they were just thoughtful people who wanted to “prove someone cares”. That mindset remains part of the social fabric of the Storehouse today, for everyone who walks through our door looking for food or clothing.
If you’d like to show someone that you care, or see the photos of the Scholls that still hang with pride at the food pantry, come volunteer. Simply contact our volunteer coordinator, Glenna, at (505)449-4021 or gjdonnell@goadelante.org