The city of Hawthorne kicked off construction for a new 15,000-square-foot community resource center on Monday as city officials and project members shoveled dirt during a celebratory groundbreaking. 

The facility located at 7642 SE US Highway 301 in Hawthorne, across from Tractor Supply Company, will replace the Hawthorne Area Resource Center nonprofit currently operating out of a house. 

Half of the new space will serve as a food bank while the other half will provide employment, housing, financial and other counseling resources to the community. Forefront Architecture and Engineering and Tallen Builders aim to finish the center by August.  

“We’re just happy that it’s finally coming to fruition,” said Hawthorne Mayor Jacquelyn Randall. “It’s been something that we’ve seen a mile away, and now it’s actually here in our backyard and we’re doing what we said we’re going to do.” 

Randall said plans for the new center started forming during the COVID-19 pandemic when the city struggled to meet the community’s needs. She said the City Commission secured $5.9 million in COVID-19 funding from the state for the project and has until the end of the year to use it.  

Once the resource center opens, its food bank will continue receiving regular donations from Publix and shipments from Bread of the Mighty and Farm Share. Other resources like senior care boxes, Christmas dinners, bill forgiveness and help navigating Medicare and Medicaid will continue being offered.  

Volunteers from the current Hawthorne Area Resource Center will manage the new facility, as well as a resource manager employed by the city. 

Children’s Trust of Alachua County will be housed inside, and Randall said she hopes other county resources like the property appraiser, Supervisor of Elections and other community initiatives could join in the future.   

“We’re trying to work with the county to have them come in and work alongside that manager to offer other services that we currently don’t have right in this region,” she said. “If transportation is our issue, then we could bring countywide services to the residents here, and it could be within walking distance for them to reach.”  

Fred Will has been a volunteer and board member of Hawthorne Area Resource Center for almost eight years. He said the old center has been operating out of a 100-year-old house since it opened in 2016 and volunteers are most looking forward to more space to serve more people more easily. 

“When we get a delivery, it has to be hand-carried in. We’ll be able to just take a whole forklift and bring it right in the building, put it in freezers. It’s gonna be amazing,” he said. “We’ll be able to have counseling rooms to take people into instead of having to do it on the porch.” 

Editor’s note: This story was underwritten by a grant from the Rural Reporting Initiative at the Community Foundation of North Central Florida.