The Food Bank confirmed this week that it will move food pickup from its temporary Morgan Way location to the rear portion of its new facility at 506 Miller St. effective on Monday. 

That is the “pantry” portion of the new building off Northside Drive West, though much remains to be completed in the front portion, which will include the dining hall, kitchen and classrooms for nutrition classes and other programs.

However, since Statesboro Food Bank currently operates only the “meal box” or pantry program, it will be able to move into the new building and open to the public there July 1, Executive Director Sheila Stewart-Leach said.

“We’ll be moving into the pantry – the Joe Bill Brannon Pantry – at the end of this month,” she said earlier in June. “The public area, the front, is not finished yet, and will not be, probably until this fall.”

Ceilings remain to be suspended, equipment for the kitchen and furnishings for the classrooms purchased and restrooms built out and their fixtures installed.

But with the storage space completed and freezers and coolers operating in the rear pantry area, which takes up about 6,500 square feet of the building’s approximately 12,000-square-foot interior, a transition is imminent.

“We’re moving pantries. Morgan Way will shut down on June 30 and we’ll reopen on July 1 (at 506 Miller Street) for the meal-box program, which is what we do in the pantry,” Stewart-Leach said.

A ribbon cutting ceremony specifically for the pantry is being planned for mid-July.

Operating hours at the Joe Bill Brannon Pantry will remain 9 a.m.-4 p.m., Monday through Friday throughout July. In August, the Food Bank plans to expand hours to be open after 5 p.m. one day per week and to be open on some Saturdays.

The Food Bank operated out of the old Julia P. Bryant School on Donnie Simmons Way until September 2023 when its food pantry program that distributes “meal boxes” of groceries for home preparation to the temporary, leased space on Morgan Way.