DARIEN — Person to Person, a nonprofit that provides food assistance, clothing and care programs to those who in need, hopes to improve safety on its Darien campus by making some changes — one of which is building a 730-square-foot, two-story addition to its food pantry.
The addition would be about 27 feet by 27 feet with a front porch that would substantially increase the pantry’s storage capacity, said the plan, which was recently submitted to Darien’s Planning & Zoning Commission.
“The main purpose of the addition to the existing food pantry is to expand the area of the pantry that’s dedicated to receiving food donations and sorting,” said Nancy Coughlin, executive director of Person-To-Person, which is on the property with St. Luke’s Episcopal Church at 1864 Post Road.
“What’s happening is when we have food delivered from Connecticut Foodshare (a statewide food bank), they drop the pallets in the parking lot in front of the food pantry because there’s not enough room to bring them inside the food pantry,” Coughlin said.
She said the addition would enable Person to Person to bring the pallets inside instead of having volunteers stand outside in the cold and rain, bringing bringing food inside to put on the shelves.
The addition would be more attractive then the current set up and would be a more efficient use of volunteers’ time and a better experience for the volunteers, she said about Person to Person, which also has locations on South Main Street in Norwalk and Fairfield Avenue in Stamford.
A public hearing on the plan will be April 28 at Darien’s Planning & Zoning Commission. If the plan is approved, Fleenor hopes to be able to relocate the playground in the summer, and have the the addition and parking lot work completed next summer.
“The work is all about safety and accessibility. It’s improving the traffic flow to help the parking lot be more safe and get traffic off of (busy) Ring’s End road quickly,” said Ryan Fleenor, rector at St. Luke’s Church.
Other changes Person to Person hopes to make include moving the playground for St. Luke’s Parish school. To get to the playground, which is located behind Franklin House, about 150 children aged 3-5 “cross the church’s primary and busiest entrance driveway … and also to return to the education building,” the plan said.
If the plan is approved, the playground would be moved to the front yard of the education building along Rings End Road. Children would get to the playground directly from the Post Road side of the education building, at the much less busy entrance drive for the elderly parking area, the plan said.
Additional improvements include reconfiguring the main parking lot to eliminate a curb cut between rows of parking, increasing available parking from 100 to 102 spaces, and adding new lighting fixtures.
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