On Friday at the old Salvation Army church on G Street in Aberdeen, Kim Gilbert punctured a fist-sized hole into an interior wall with a swift swing of a sledgehammer. The ceremonial bash broke ground on a three-month renovation that will turn the former house of worship into the nonprofit’s new service center.

Gilbert is the Aberdeen Salvation Army service center coordinator. She, along with other Salvation Army leaders, a handful of their volunteers, crews from Rognlin’s, Inc. and Harbor Architects were on site at 215 N. G Street Friday morning to inaugurate the project by grasping golden shovels and posing in the sunshine. Those tools were strictly for show — most of the work will take place on the inside of the building, where crews will add a full kitchen and appliances, tear down and replace a few walls, add a walk in cooler and build a mezzanine.

Once that’s finished in late July, the Salvation Army will move its local headquarters from Wishkah Street into the new digs, which will allow — while continuing its regular social services model — for an expanded, grocery-store-style food bank in the church’s former sanctuary.

Mike Barkstrom, a Salvation Army board member and volunteer, said the move will consolidate resources given that the Salvation Army already owned the church building, which had been vacant for a number of years.

“A few years ago we started looking at our model and how it was serving the community and came to the conclusion that the building we were in was not conducive to what we were trying to do and help people,” said Shaun Jones, disaster director for the Salvation Army’s Northwest Division.

Over half of the Wishkah Street building hadn’t been used for about five years, since the Salvation Army closed its thrift store there, Barkstrom said. The food bank, along with social services like rent, medication and disaster assistance, continued to operate next door. Last February the Salvation Army sold the entire building for $350,000 to the city of Aberdeen and has since rented its current space.

As the Salvation Army readies for its move, the city is preparing the building to house the Aberdeen Museum of History and a visitor center, according to previous reporting by The Daily World. Gilbert said the food bank plans to remain open during the transition.

With the new location, food bank attendees who formerly lined the Wishkah Street sidewalk waiting for prepackaged rations will instead be welcomed inside the renovated church to peruse and pick out morsels to their liking. Jones said the Salvation Army in the past 10 years has transitioned over a dozen food banks in the region to this “client-choice” style, which comes with a number of benefits, namely reducing food waste. Gilbert said she sometimes noticed food thrown away because people either don’t prefer or don’t know how to cook items they were given.

With client-choice, “They’re taking the things they want, they’re using the things they take,” Barkstrom said.

According to Jones, client-choice banks are “meant to add a sense of dignity,” and in other places in the state people “really enjoy being able to pick out what they would eat.”

That doesn’t necessarily mean, however, clients can take as much as they want. Gilbert and Barkstrom said they still need to come up with a model for regulating how much food someone can take.

“It’s going to be kind of a guessing game with how much we allow people to take without clearing our shelves,” Gilbert said.

Empty shelves aren’t a stranger for Gilbert. A pandemic-induced rise in food bank use only continued to grow in the last year. Meanwhile, food bank suppliers saw a dramatic dip in inventory. Gilbert told The Daily World in December the Salvation Army food bank was serving three times the amount of people — anywhere from 700-900 per month — than before the pandemic began. Officials say expiration of emergency federal food subsidies, like cuts in extra SNAP benefits, exacerbated the trend.

The client-choice model, Gilbert said, will require more food and more volunteers. Gilbert said she hopes to potentially partner with the nearby Aberdeen High School and the Grays Harbor Community Clothing Bank.

The Salvation Army is also banking on community support for the final dollars to complete the remodel. Up to this point sales from the building downtown, along with grant money, has provided most of the funds for the $650,000 project.

Renovation plans also include a new shower along with a washer and dryer. And when disaster strikes, the old church will be capable of serving as temporary housing for Salvation Army workers.

Contact reporter Clayton Franke at 406-552-3917 or clayton.franke@thedailyworld.com.

The former sanctuary of the Salvation Army church will become a walk-in, grocery-style food bank, where clients can peruse and pick out foods to their liking. (Clayton Franke / The Daily World)