HOLLAND, Mich. — On Friday January 20, a fire broke out in the pantry at Gateway Mission on River Avenue that ultimately caused $50,000 in damages. Ten days later, they’re almost ready to re-open it.
“We’re currently cleaning everything from top to bottom. Servpro has been in here for an entire week,” said Jay Riemersma, Gateway’s interim executive director. “We've got to make sure that there’s no mold, anything like that that typically kind of grows after a water incident. We want to make sure that that’s eradicated.”
Riermersa said they’ve been doing a good job wiping down and sanitizing the dozens of metal shelves in the pantry.
“So, this is where the fire started,” Riemersma said while pointing to a small dark gray mass on the ceiling. “Right up there you can see the soot kind of still is up there a little bit. But, they’re working to make sure that gets all cleaned up.”
The pantry at @gateway_mission is ready to re-open this week after a fire caused thousands of dollars in damages.
— Lauren Edwards (@LaurenEdwardsTV) January 30, 2023
The shelter lost 30-35 large pallets of food. But got it all back thanks to community donations.
Now they just need volunteers to restock the shelves. // @FOX17 pic.twitter.com/AGmCHSuBhR
When the fire broke out it immediately set off the sprinkler system which was only inches away, he said. However, all that water damaged some of the food in bags and boxes.
Days later, the Ottawa County Health Department arrived and told them which foods they had to throw out. They did so, quickly.
“We estimate that we’ve had probably food loss of about 30-35 pallets of food. That’s a lot of food but we have replenished that in no time at all,” Riemersma said during an interview with FOX 17 on Monday. “They’ve been donating everything from pasta to rice to paper products. We’re putting a call out continually for paper products, right, ‘cause we burn through those relatively quickly.”
They burn through them, he said, because they serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner to over 100 people, the men at the men’s shelter, and the women and children at their other facility.
Riemersma said the response from the community has been "overwhelming" and that it mirrors their Christian ethos of meeting people’s needs.
Now, they’re seeking volunteers to help them fill the shelves once again.
“We need to clean the pantry,” Riemersma said. “Then we’re going to come back in with an army of volunteers and just restock the shelves and make sure that we’re ready to go.”
***If you'd like to volunteer, click here***
