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Bruce Shannon packs food in the front window of the Kier Family Pantry in downtown Ogden on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. The small food pantry is run by Catholic Community Services for people who can't make it to the main food bank in West Ogden. Many of the people who come by, like Shannon, live in the neighboring Sean Herrick Apartments.

BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner

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Bruce Shannon, left, chats with volunteer Jan Luger at the Kier Family Pantry in downtown Ogden on Wednesday, May 17, 2017. The small pantry serves around 50 people a month who can't easily make it to the main food pantry in West Ogden. The number of people stopping by the downtown pantry has increased since expanding in March.

BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner

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OGDEN — The Kier Family Pantry, a free food bank at the low-income Sean Herrick Apartments, just became a lot more convenient for those in need.

The downtown location on the east side of the apartments at 194 25th Street in Ogden used to offer a box of pre-selected foods to people in need — what you got was what you got. Now, it offers almost all the variety of the Joyce Hansen Hall Food Bank in west Ogden and clients can choose what they get, including dairy and fresh produce.

Before the change, most who can’t afford to buy their own food would categorize choosing what to eat as a luxury.

There are plenty of people — many of whom are in wheelchairs — going to considerable trouble for such a treat, crossing the 24th Street viaduct each month to visit the Joyce Hansen Hall Food Bank, according to Debbie Nielsen, programs coordinator at Catholic Community Services of Northern Utah.

The Kier Family Pantry is open for two days each month. Clients may collect food once, not on both days. The pantry is open to anyone who qualifies by providing proof of address, identification and proof that family income is 150 percent or less of the federal poverty level.

This week, Lynette Lawson was excited to be getting some sweet tea lemonade she’s never gotten from the pantry before.

She’s lived at the Sean Herrick Apartments for 10 years, and visits the food bank monthly. 

When she received a prepared box of goods, she said she often got items she didn’t have means to spin into meals.

“I couldn’t eat it all when I didn’t get to choose,” she said.

Jan Luger, a volunteer who has organized the pantry for 24 years, empathized with the issue.

“They don’t need five cans of pumpkin and three cans of apple sauce,” Luger said. 

The improvements have evolved over time. In late 2015, the building, previously known as the Marion Hotel, was remodeled and the pantry got upgraded with a new, larger space.

In the past few weeks, workers from Catholic Community Services provided shelves and a refrigerator to store fresh foods for distribution. (They also have a freezer for meat, which was added about 6 years ago.)

This week, extra items including laundry detergent, hygiene packs and reading eye glasses were given to clients. 

“A couple of fellows were so excited about the glasses,” Luger said.

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BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner

This week, several of the dozen or so clients who visited were happy to discover flatbread on the shelves, Nielsen said. Furthering the delight, they also discovered the pantry had spaghetti sauce, sausage and pepperoni, clients planned to make themselves small pizzas with leftover cheese they got last month, she said.

“They look through what we have,” Nielsen said. “I can see them having little menus in their heads.”

BENJAMIN ZACK/Standard-Examiner

You can reach reporter JaNae Francis at jfrancis@standard.net or 801-625-4228. Follow her on Twitter at @JaNaeFrancisSE or like her on Facebook at facebook.com/SEJaNaeFrancis.