The North Gwinnett Co-Op serves hundreds of people every month with the need for services growing substantially every year. Our current building houses our food pantry and our thrift store, “Second Blessings”.
To say the building is “crowded”– with every inch of our building being used—is an understatement. In late 2015, Co-Op leadership realized the need for expansion. In discussing our possible expansion with our clients, it was clear that our clients were concerned the new location would be too far away. As God’s plan would have it, we had the opportunity to rent the building next door. In 2016, we began to create the vision for the new building. As a result, we decided to connect the two buildings, creating one large building. In April of 2016, we made our first grant application for funds to purchase the building next door. In the spring of 2017, we kicked off our “Fight Hunger, Build Hope” capital campaign with a goal to raise $3.25 million.
The goals of the Fight Hunger, Build Hope campaign are:
In May of 2018, we were able to purchase the building next door – DEBT FREE!! For the remainder of 2018 we continued to raise funds and pray the Lord would send us the right contractor for the job.
We signed a contract with our contractor on February 7, 2019. Construction will begin soon and we are prayerful that the building will be completed by the Fall of 2019.
On Tuesday, October 8th, 2019, we hosted a Ribbon Cutting ceremony to celebrate the Grand Opening of our new expansion! We now have a beautiful foyer entrance, a food pantry almost twice the previous size–allowing us to serve families every month, a break room for our hard working loyal volunteers to rest & re-group, a computer lab & education room for tutoring/adult education & meetings, enhanced offices for staff members. We LOVE our new expansion and we are very grateful to be Debt Free with this portion of our expansion!
We are now needing to complete our capital campaign, roughly $29,500, in order to allow us to update and expand our 2nd Blessings Thrift Store. Updates will include expanding the store walls, providing dressing rooms, a client restroom, and updated storage facilities. Bids for construction will not begin until the monies have been raised. We are prayerfully hoping to begin the process mid-spring 2020.
Please consider collaborating with us to Fight Hunger Build Hope. To donate to the capital campaign, click here.
If you would like to read the case statement for the Fight Hunger Build Hope campaign, click here.
For additional information and/or questions, please contact Kim Phillips at kphillips@ngcoop.org.