AUBURN — A five-year-old food pantry that feeds about 320 families each week from a rear aisle of the Good Shepherd Food-Bank is closing.

“The food bank has been great to us, but we signed a contract and it’s up,” said Lynn Casavant, who founded In His Name Food Pantry in 2008. The pantry will end its work on May 23.

Until then, Casavant and the pantry’s volunteers plan to work with people to connect with other pantries. No one will be abandoned, she vowed.

“I know where they live. I know their families,” she said. “And they’re all getting my personal number when I leave here. I want to be able to look them in the eye and say, ‘I’ve done everything I could to make sure it did not stop with me.'”

The pantry was initiated by the food bank, a supplier to roughly 600 food pantries, shelters and soup kitchens statewide.

In 2008, the food bank had spent years feeding local people by bartering food for work in its warehouse. Then, federal labor laws changed to prohibit the exchange. The food bank created the pantry to continue delivering food to those who needed it.

It worked.

A gate was erected at the end of one warehouse aisle and the space was given to Casavant, who quickly built an operation. Casavant, who lives in Lewiston, recruited more than 100 volunteers and the list of recipients surpassed 500.

The pantry originally had a three-year agreement to work in the back of the food bank warehouse. That was extended by another two years, but it’s now time to move on, Casavant said.

In a joint statement, the pantry and the food bank agreed that other local agencies can help the people now being aided by the pantry.

One local food pantry operator, Lt. Jason Brake of the Salvation Army in Lewiston, said demand is already high.

“I’ve been here for four years,” Brake said Tuesday. “Keeping the food pantry stocked the last six months is the toughest I’ve seen.”

However, if the In His Name pantry sends hungry people to him, he’ll do his best.

“As long as we have food, we’ll keep passing it out,” Brake said. “We’ve never turned anyone away.”

Casavant said she’s not sure what she’ll do when the pantry closes.

“God hasn’t told me yet,” she said. “Food is the tool that God gave us to be able to reach people.”

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