Disaster Relief Food Ministry Inc. celebrated the opening of its new Stuart office and storage facility with a ribbon cutting Monday, marking the organization’s first permanent location in Patrick County.
Founder Jimmy Willard said the new location will allow the organization to establish a physical presence in the county while creating opportunities to expand its operations.
The office space will allow Willard’s wife and organization director, Carol Willard, to complete accounting and other paperwork closer to her job at EMI. The organization also hopes to eventually use the nearby green building for food storage.
“I won’t be able to store any of my food or any of my boxes until I get it to where I can get it inspected by Feeding Southwest Virginia, and that’s down the road quite a ways,” Willard said.
To meet Feeding Southwest Virginia’s standards, Willard said food distributed in Bassett and Patrick County must be stored separately.
“It takes a lot of room, so that’s why the warehouse in Bassett is important. But I believe we’ll be able to move Patrick County freezers here and I’ll have the frozen ones on site once we get inspected and all of that. Of course that depends on what we find when we get in there that we have to repair and that type of thing,” he said.
For more information, visit drfminc.com, Facebook.com/DisasterReliefFoodMinistryInc, or contact Willard at (276) 229-6272 or [email protected].
