A decade-old food pantry’s makeshift home is entering a new chapter after Frontier Credit Union stepped forward with an $800,000 donation, securing the building’s future and naming rights.

The building, which houses the Blackfoot Food Pantry and foster care closet, The Village, has been officially renamed the Frontier Community Outreach Center. The area credit union donated $800,000 — covering more than three-quarters of the building’s $1 million cost — with Frontier also providing a $200,000 interest-free loan.

Frontier Credit Union also donated a truckload of food for the pantry.

“This community has been so incredibly generous, and the support that they give to the food pantry and The Village is just really pretty amazing,” said Katie Harris, a member of the Community Dinner Table board of directors and local business owner.

The building had been used rent-free by nonprofit Community Dinner Table for its food pantry operations for roughly 10 years under an arrangement with owner Bill Sponnenberg. When Sponnenberg needed to sell the property last year, the resident nonprofits saw an opportunity to secure a permanent home rather than risk losing their space.

A press conference roughly a year and a half ago announced the fundraising effort, kicking off a total remodel by The Village for its portion of the building, a project that cost about $450,000 and was largely funded through community donations and volunteerism.

Community Dinner Table, the nonprofit under which the Blackfoot Food Pantry operates, was founded just under 20 years ago to address food insecurity in the area. The organization coordinates a weekly community dinner served at a local Methodist church from October through March, staffed by volunteers from area faith groups, businesses and community organizations. Free food boxes are distributed every Wednesday at the pantry. Harris said the pantry’s food and supplies come entirely from donations, without government assistance.

Purchasing the building required an initial $50,000 in rent payments during a one-year window that Sponnenberg granted the nonprofits to raise funds, according to Harris.

A group of early donors stepped forward to cover that initial cost, and several of them attended Wednesday’s announcement alongside local government officials, Frontier Credit Union staff and volunteers from the pantry and The Village.

Dan Thurman, CEO of Frontier Credit Union, announced at the event that the credit union will open a branch inside the building, expected in early 2027, marking the company’s entry into the Blackfoot market.

Jackie Young, president of Community Dinner Table, also spoke about the organization’s history and its future plans for the site.

Beyond housing the pantry, The Village and the new Frontier branch, Harris said a middle section of the building will be remodeled into an outreach center featuring educational programming and a planned commercial kitchen.

“Our goal is that the outreach center just becomes a hub of resources community wide,” Harris said. “Whether it’s addressing food instability or children in foster care or providing other community resources.”

Harris said that both the city and county of Blackfoot were recently designated JustServe Cities and JustServe Counties, formal recognitions of volunteerism.

Harris said the multifaceted altruism of the many volunteers is indicative of the communal nature and goodwill of everyone involved. Harris relayed that there are hundreds of examples and stories of people stepping forward with their business, donations or volunteer hours — contributions that are often at no or reduced cost.

“We just felt incredibly blessed throughout the whole process,” Harris said. “I think we’re really grateful, really excited about what this next chapter looks like, because I think it’s going to surprise people how amazing this outreach center is really going to be.”

Organizers said they hope the broader community will feel ownership over the center’s future, adding that anyone interested in supporting the project further is welcome to get involved.