Cocke County's oldest food pantry has found a new home after flooding ruined its old building | wbir.com

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NEWPORT, Tenn. — Cocke County's longest-running food pantry has a new home after Hurricane Helene flooded its original building. It was previously located in the basement of Riverview Baptist Church.

After weeks of operating out of a mobile van, the Bread Basket food pantry has a new home. Mountain Ways, a nonprofit, and other donors helped bring the food pantry into a new building located at 625 Honey Bee Lane in Newport.

"We never thought we would have a building after we lost everything, and when they came to us, it was just amazing that we got it. Now we can continue to serve and help the people of Cocke County," said Trish Clapper, the director of Bread Basket.

Clapper said donations helped lease the building for a year, but also said the location is up for purchase.

"We have an option to purchase this building, but we need $300,000 to do it. And I'm praying that God allows us to do it. We're planning on making this a permanent home. I believe that God wouldn't have got us set up here just to have us move again. So I believe in the donations. I'm having faith that God will allow the donations to come in to purchase this building," said Clapper.

For the last two weeks, Duke Seals said he's been helping out at the food pantry with his wife, Stephanie Seals. He lives in Maryville.

"At the beginning, it was just a couple of days to come and help up our fellow Tennesseans and we got to meet Trish and got to see her love and compassion for her community and people around her and it kind of just engulfs you. So after our first few days, we just didn't stop coming up," said Duke.

The Seals were married a few days before they headed to Cocke County to help. They gave up their honeymoon so they would have time to help communities recover from the storm.

"To give up a honeymoon, that says a lot about your character and about the heart that you have. It touched me really big and they've become really close friends since, I mean, they stayed in here to get this painted," said Clapper.

The newlyweds were surprised that at the food pantry's grand reopening, there were gifts to thank them for their selfless help.

"It just also shows you how big their hearts are too, that they're also thinking about us. Whenever there are so many other people affected too, that they decided to give us some gift cards and they decided to give us some flowers to help us celebrate. That was really special to us," said Stephanie.

The Bread Basket needs a commercial freezer before the Thanksgiving holiday, which would cost around $20,000. At the grand reopening event, attendees helped raise around $13,000.

Clapper wants to stress while regional organizations have been donating, she also needs help on the local level. There is a GoFundMe campaign where people can donate to help.

"I was just sitting there going, 'God, I don't want this to close at my hands, after almost 62 years.' We were 61 years the day of the flood and I was like, 'We're a month shy of 62 years. You didn't bring us this long, this far to let some water stop us.' The people need us now more than ever," said Clapper.