More than three years after it first tried to move out of the Trinity Episcopal Church basement, soup kitchen and grocery pantry Iron Gate broke ground Thursday on a new facility.
Iron Gate on Archer is going on a roughly 2-acre county-owned lot adjacent to the Tulsa County Jail at 501 W Archer St. A nearly 20,000 square foot building will mean guests won’t have to wait outside for meals and groceries.
The new building is a big step up from the soup kitchen and grocery pantry’s current home. Father John Powers started Iron Gate 40 years ago when he and parishioners made a homeless man a sandwich.
"We just thought, ‘Well, this will be over today.’ And then more people came the next day and the next day. So, it just burgeoned," Powers said. "We had a day school that had hot food so we could use leftover food. So, it just grew and grew quickly."
Plans include cool and dry food storage.
"The biggest game-changer for us is the warehouse space. The ability to bulk buy and store food helps us tremendously economically," said Iron Gate Board President Shaun Saunders.
Construction is expected to take about a year. Iron Gate’s previously planned moves to Third Street and Peoria Avenue and to Seventh Street and Frankfort Avenue were blocked by the city.
Iron Gate Executive Director Carrie Vesely Henderson said their mission is to help the one in six Oklahomans struggling with hunger.
"So, what we do is we just feed people every day, and no questions, no limits. Just come in and we’ll feed you. I think one of the greatest things about Iron Gate is that we do treat everyone with dignity, courtesy and respect," Henderson said.
Iron Gate served almost 210,000 meals last year to nearly 18,000 Tulsans, and the new facility will double their capacity.
