Woodburn's AWARE Food Bank rises from the ashes after arson destroys former location

When a person set fire to the food bank in Woodburn in 2021, the closure of such a community resource could have compounded the tragedy.

But the AWARE Food Bank reopened a day later, just in a different form.

The three staff members and dozen volunteers set up a temporary location in a parking lot next to the building.

Marion Polk Food Share drove trucks up to Woodburn from Salem, parked them at a city-owned parking lot next to the damaged building and distributed food to whoever needed it.

Though the food bank building wasn’t habitable, the need in the community didn’t go away.

“It was really important to us to have continuity of services,” said Ian Dixon-McDonald, vice president of programs for Marion Polk Food Share.

Before the pandemic, about 1 million pounds of food was distributed at the site in Woodburn to about 1,600 families each year. Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, that rose to 1.5 million pounds of food.

“It is a very high-volume food bank,” said Mark Wilk, a board member of AWARE Food Bank and Marion Polk Food Share.

After moving around to a few temporary locations over the past couple of years, the AWARE Food Bank will soon return to a new building at the old location.

Construction on the $5.3 million, 8,000-square-foot building is expected to be completed in October.

“It was devastating to us when it burned down,” Woodburn Mayor Frank Lonergan said. “But we’re able to rebuild one of the better assets of Woodburn from it, so we’re real excited to have it."

A food bank in a historic Woodburn location

Some version of the AWARE Food Bank has existed in Woodburn since the late 1970s. It was in a few different locations until moving to its permanent address on Arthur Street downtown.

The big, white building on Arthur Street was built in the 1900s, Dixon-McDonald said.

“It was an International Farm Dealership 100 years ago,” Lonergan said. “And then it was a care center where they did therapeutics, and then it was some type of thrift store for a long time and then the food bank took it over.”

Marion-Polk Food Share purchased the building in 2012 for $24,000, according to Marion County property tax records.

AWARE Food Bank, which stands for All Woodburn Area Resources Enlisted, continued to run the program out of the building until 2015, when it was brought into Marion-Polk Food Share.

Though the building had plenty of space for the food bank, it was far from perfect.

“It was not adequate for us,” Joana Flores, the pantry coordinator said. “We had the space and everything, but the floors were not appropriate.”

The only way they had to store and distribute cold food to people was from a row of home refrigerators and freezers.

Marion County Commissioner Danielle Bethell said that in 2021, one of the freezers broke and the commissioners approved a grant for $50,000 of federal funds to pay for a new one.

The building’s electrical system was also limited due to its age.

“It worked and we made it work I would say, but it was a very difficult place to run a pantry out of,” Dixon-McDonald said.

Then the worst happened.

Arson damages AWARE Food Bank building beyond repair

On Aug. 18, 2021, Manuel Garcia-Martinez threw a lit cigarette into a bush in the southwest corner of the AWARE Food Bank building and fanned the flames as the bushes burned, according to court documents.

No people were in the building at the time, but an estimated 20% of the building and about five pallets of food were damaged in the fire.

Multiple fire crews arrived on the scene — the first were student resident volunteers from Chemeketa Community College’s fire science program — and were able to extinguish the fire.

Garcia-Martinez pleaded guilty to arson in 2022 and was sentenced to three years of probation, substance abuse treatment and mental health treatment.

The cost of rehabilitating the existing building was going to be too much, so it was torn down.

The food share could have chosen a different site because the existing site was limited in size.

“The decision was made to keep it in downtown Woodburn because people were familiar with that there and easy transportation in the transportation center,” Wilk said.

Constraints of temporary locations

Since the fire, the food bank has moved to several locations.

It could be difficult to find.

“We had a lot of fliers out there, a lot of social media, but due to the language barriers, some people don’t speak Spanish that much and some don’t speak English,” said Joana Flores, the pantry coordinator.

AWARE serves a number of immigrant communities, including people from Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ukraine, Philippines and Brazil, Flores said.

When the pantry is open for three hours in the morning Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday, there is a constant stream of customers.

They’re grateful to have their current location at Hoodview Church of God, 1530 Mt. Hood Ave., but it displays the need for a space designed specifically for a food bank.

Staff members and volunteers constantly are restocking shelves, refrigerators and freezers with food because there isn’t enough room on the shelves to hold enough food for the 100 or so people who get food each day.

“Like for example this past week with the heat, a lot of workers, farmworkers were off early from work, so we got really busy with just a bunch of farm workers coming,” Deisy Chavez, AWARE program manager, said.

The current space is so small that volunteers sometimes have to be turned away.

The current location gets shipments from Marion Polk Food Share on a weekly basis, but it also receives deliveries from stores like Safeway, Mega Foods and Walmart. There are times those have to be rerouted to Marion Polk Food Share’s Salem campus because of the lack of space in Woodburn.

“We can’t handle that,” Chavez said.

Raising funds for a new food bank

Woodburn secured $750,000 from federal Community Development Block Grant funds for COVID-19 response for the project, according to Renata Wakeley, the special projects director for Woodburn. The City Council also gave $500,000 in federal American Rescue Plan Act funds for the project.

Marion County put $750,000 of American Rescue Plan Act funds toward the project.

Then the state Legislature allocated $2.4 million toward the rebuild.

“A lot of that had to do with the advocacy of Rep. Teresa Alonso-Leon,” Dixon-McDonald said.

The remainder of the estimated $5.3 million came from insurance money from the fire and donations from foundations and people.

Construction started in October.

The new building has a loading dock in the U-shaped portion of the building and roll-up delivery doors in the front and back.

It has a large warehousing area and walk-in refrigerators and freezers, from which customers will more easily be able to choose what food they want — more like a grocery store experience.

“Not only is the facility going to be state of the art and built to last, but the manner of delivering food is, I just think, profoundly more respectful and more appropriate,” Wilk said.

The building has details like countertops and window sills made with wood reclaimed from the previous building.

It also has offices and a community room for people to use.

There will also be a generator so the building can be used for city emergencies such as power outages.

“I do think that it’s going to be a central hub for individuals who have a need to be able to come and not just get a box of food,” Bethell said. "When you walk in the door and talk to the food bank staff, I think they’re wanting for you to feel like you’re a part of the family and they can hear you and receive you and then guide you.”

A regional hub in Marion County

The food bank will not only serve people in Woodburn, but also be a distribution point to other food banks in the northern part of Marion County in cities like Aurora and Hubbard.

“One of our areas of focus in this past year has been to increase support to northern Marion County,” Wilk said.

When people see the new building, they inevitably get excited.

“People have been asking, ‘Oh, when’s the new building coming up?’” Chavez said.

It is expected to open to the public in early November.

Bill Poehler covers Marion and Polk County for the Statesman Journal. Contact him at bpoehler@StatesmanJournal.com

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: AWARE Food Bank being rebuilt after arson in Woodburn, Oregon