The Pella Community Food Shelf hosted the public for an open house at the new location on the west side of Pella on Thursday.

The KNIA/KRLS Lil’ Big Red Radio was at the event, which included catered appetizers, holiday themed activities, tours of their new space, and information about local hunger. The open house also served as a fundraiser for the food shelf’s HopeFULL Movement, which has an overall goal of raising $1.5 million. Director of the Pella Food Shelf Melissa Zula says that she hopes that the open house helped the community better understand the work that the food shelf does, not only in Pella, but throughout Marion County as well.

“I hope as folks were coming on through that they learned a little bit about the food shelf, that really we might have started right here and it was intended to care for just one family inside of Pella and it has now branched over to 500. And then when we move outside of our own walls and we started to go into Marion County, there’s more than 200 registered households on the Mobile Food Pantry, just accessing multiple locations.”

Hear more about the open house from Melissa Zula today on the Food Drive Friday special edition news magazines at 9 am and 2 pm. Find out how to donate to the HopeFULL Movement at the Pella Community Food Shelf here.