LI Cares food pantry set to open doors on Valley Stream's downtown

A retail storefront along Rockaway Avenue in Valley Stream sits empty for now, but come November, the building will once again open its doors within the village’s business district. But not as an upscale boutique or a trendy new office space. The 2,600-square-foot structure will serve as an onsite emergency food pantry facility run by the Freeport-based regional food bank, Long Island Cares.

Dubbed the “West Nassau Center for Food Assistance & Community Support,” the 241 Rockaway Ave. facility aims at offering a permanent, “one-stop” site for food-insecure families to access healthy food.

This will be the food bank’s sixth satellite location on the Island with current sites in Huntington Station and Lindenhurst. While the nonprofit has propped up temporary food distributions in Valley Stream and helped stock the pantries of local food distribution sites for years, the idea to roll out a permanent location gained ground during the early phase of the Covid pandemic.

“We were contacted by Assemblywoman Michaelle Solages to open up a temporary distribution location in Valley Stream,” said Paule Pachter, chief executive officer of Long Island Cares. “And she was able to bring us together with the Valley Stream Presbyterian Church” at South Central Ave. That became one of our busiest distribution locations because the food assistance need was significant.”

During that time, “People were laid off. They were furloughed,” Solages said. “There were children who were not going to school, so they didn’t have access to the normal meal that they would have: breakfast and lunch. There was massive food insecurity.”

That’s when Pachter and his team began talks of opening up another satellite location.

Solages was also there to lighten the project’s financial load thanks to a roughly $200,000 legislative grant she obtained for the satellite extension through state budget funds.

Alongside the normal food pantry services, the facility will house:

Baxter’s Pet Pantry: a pet pantry with free pet food and supplies available to pet-owning families in need

Gus’s Retail Food Rescue Center: a pantry providing perishable food received from dozens of retailers and made available for pick up by South Shore member agencies

Training room: A conference space available for allied community partners to meet and hold training on proper food safety handling, nutrition, and storage.

So why pick Valley Stream’s Rockaway Avenue?

When scouting for an ideal site in Valley Stream to settle down roots, Pachter and his team considered a location that ticked off several important must-haves: the location must be easily accessible through public transportation, highly visible within the community, and have additional services and supports that food-insecure families could benefit from. 

Choosing to open up a pantry within Valley Stream’s downtown, located just north of the Long Island Rail Road station, and next to a row of storefronts that provide their own health and welfare services ticked off all the boxes, according to Patcher.

“Rockaway Avenue is a perfect place because it’s a visible part of the community and a commercial hub,” Solages said.

But with a number of empty storefronts still dotting the downtown street, Rockaway has been slow to restore its vibrancy. A situation Patcher contends that the new facility could, at least in part, improve.

“In every community that we open up, we become active members of the local Chamber of Commerce,” he said.

“We support all their efforts. We work with their local schools and local businesses.

Valley Stream Chamber of Commerce President Sasan Shavanson did not respond to request for comment.

That a food pantry facility gains an equal foothold in a downtown largely dominated by shops and restaurants also reveals the need for direct, flexible food options among families facing diverse and ever-changing economic situations, argued Solages.

Trends show that people – saddled with price hikes on everything from grocery store prices to gas – are being pushed away from high-priced food options and pulled toward cheaper alternatives or even free ones – like those offered at pantries.

With June’s record-high inflation prices, the nationwide demand for food pantries has only intensified with no signs of decline any time soon.

“Last July, we were at about 4,700 people visiting our satellite locations during the year,” Pachter said. “We’re now at 8,400 people – a 67 percent increase. “It’s just the reality that inflation is hurting families and can’t seem to afford everything.”

And there is no shortage of reports about long lines forming outside resource-stressed food banks. Patcher, however, tried to soothe concerns that the facility will bring a similar blight to the neighboring storefronts

“We certainly never have lines,” he said. “We don’t do any mass distributions in public locations. People that come to Long Island Cares, register with us. They’re able to come once a month, and we do whatever we can do to help them. The only people that we serve on a weekly basis are veterans.”

To dissuade any stigma, Patcher said that those coming into the building will walk into a normal office space, with the pantry walled off from view. “We’re very excited to be able to open in Valley Stream,” he said. “The community has been extremely supportive of us. And we’re looking forward to helping the community as best we can.”