The Panora City Council recently approved putting measures on the local food pantry using the community center. 

Mayor Pat Parker says the food pantry has grown in size and the Council wanted to formalize the operation of their use of the community center with an ordinance. Parker says the Council approved guidelines the pantry will have to follow to use the community center. 

“Well, I mean, part of it, it’s just making sure that we’re following safety, food safety protection standards, that’s basically what it’s calling out in the fact that we want food stored on the shelves, non-perishable items stored on shelves four to six inches off the ground, which is standard practice in the industry. And then we want to make sure that the food is not expired.”

Parkers describes another aspect of the ordinance. 

“The end of the year, we’re asking the group to give a report to the city as to how many individuals in the community they were able to help. So that way we could show the citizens that by allowing the food pantry to be in there, it is benefiting the community and this is how many people we’re helping each year.”

Parkers says the next step is meeting with members of the food pantry.