Around 30 hours after Deeper Purpose Community Church (DPCC) reported on Wednesday that it would temporarily close its resource center due to a lack of funding, the church announced it will resume services on Monday after receiving a grant from the Community Foundation of North Central Florida (CFNCF).
DPCC’s food pantry and community fridge at the church (19930 NW US Hwy 441, High Springs) is one of the largest distributors of free food for High Springs and the surrounding rural communities.
CFNCF president and CEO Barzella Papa said her organization is giving around $25,000 to help keep the resource center open through the end of the calendar year. She said it will also work closely with DPCC to build a strategy for long-term sustainability.
Although the pantry is currently without food, Papa said CFNCF will be at DPCC on Monday when Bread of the Mighty Food Bank delivers a truckload of food to restock the pantry.
“We were just really excited that we were able to step in and not disrupt their operations and keep it going,” she said. “When we heard about the food pantry closing, it was an easy decision to make to get the funding and get them back open as soon as possible.”
Papa said CFNCF heard about the food pantry’s closure through a report from WCJB. She said the organization had been focusing this year on serving outlying communities and helping DPCC fit that mission.
On Thursday evening, DPCC posted on Facebook that it’s praising God for the amount of support it received since announcing its closure the day before.
DPCC lead pastor Adam Joy told Mainstreet the threat of closing the food bank was its first since it opened in 2012 and it’s been an ongoing struggle to secure the finances needed to stay in operation.
Joy said DPCC’s food bank is unique because it offers both traditional canned goods and ingredients, like bread and produce, which families can use to make meals out of.
He said the food bank often serves up to 25 families daily, 200 to 400 individuals on Friday afternoons, with as many as 400 cars coming through monthly.
Joy said it costs around $4,500 a month, or $45,000 per year, just to pay DPCC’s bills and the building’s lease where it houses the resource pantry, after-school programs, summer campers, senior and youth activities. Paying staff is an additional cost.
Joy said the church’s phone line and the food bank’s line both ring all day for people asking not just for food assistance, but other emergencies, such as covering rent, electric and water bills.
He added that DPCC had suspended in-person worship services to focus solely on community outreach.
“The reason we are struggling financially is because for the last few years, we’ve delayed our own monthly bills to help community individuals pay their emergencies and their bills and we have never gotten grant funding to help with this kind of stuff,” Joy said. “So we’ve been [saving] every dollar we can.”
He said he’s been entreating Alachua County for about a year for financial support. He said the money would go towards its nonprofit Deeper Purpose Community Charities to help it purchase more items and equipment for its resource center, help more families pay emergency rent and bills, pay its own monthly bills and hire more staff.
Joy said even though the county seemed serious a few months ago about trying to help, he said county staff told him this month that they didn’t know whether he’d receive any funding this year, or how much, if approved.
Although the county’s response wasn’t a “no,” Joy said it’s difficult to see its money go mostly into Gainesville organizations.
“[Gainesville is] their county seat,” he said. “High Springs is like a stepchild…there’s about 17 towns and cities and municipalities in Alachua County, but Gainesville is getting the bulk of [county] funds and that’s just the truth.”
Alachua County spokesperson Mark Sexton said DPCC’s charity is one of 11 organizations identified by county staff as community centers that could potentially receive county funding. Sexton said the idea is still in its conceptual stages and hasn’t been budgeted yet.
He also said DPCC hadn’t made direct requests for funding through any of the county’s other funding resources, such as its Community Agency Partnership Program, which Bread of the Mighty Food Bank is part of, or the food systems department.
Sexton said even though more county funding goes towards organizations in Gainesville, it’s because that’s where most of them are headquartered and they don’t limit their scope of service.
“So many of our services, although they’re located in Gainesville, they’re available to people all over the county,” Sexton said. “Does more of [funding] go to organizations in Gainesville? Yes, because that’s where the nonprofit organizations are.”
Joy said he is asking people to email the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners at bocc@alachuacounty.us on behalf of DPCC to request their support.
He said the church has been, and will continue to look for a smaller building that costs less. For now, with the CFNCF’s grant, Joy said the resource center will open again, and anyone interested in volunteering can email DPCC at deeperpurposecc@yahoo.com.
“This vital assistance will ensure that the center can resume its programs, provide nutritious meals for families, and maintain a welcoming space where individuals and families can access needed resources, connect with neighbors, and participate in community-building activities,” DPCC posted on Facebook.
