Community Action Services and Food Bank will close its Heber City food pantry — a location that serves about 60 families, or about 150 individuals, each week — in November. The move comes a week after the Utah County nonprofit said it needed $100,000 to remain operational through the end o f the month. Community Action Services is laying off about 15 employees. The nonprofit also serves Provo, Oakley and Coalville, where the food pantry locations will remain open. However, the Provo food pantry will be reduced by seven hours a week. Interim Chief Executive Officer Caitlin Rangel said that just over two weeks ago, the nonprofit board became concerned about the organization’s finances.  “Since that time, the remaining leadership team and our board have been working very closely together to kind of get a better grasp of what’s going on,” Rangel said. “What they found during this investigation is that we are at a really critical place, and right now we don’t have any more cash reserves to sustain the programs that we’re operating.” Rangel said the board hoped its plea for $100,000 could keep doors open through October. Now, the donation goal has increased to $1.5 million by the end of the year. “Over the past few years, what we found is that community need increased,” Rangel said. “There was a lot of available funding during COVID, so Community Action grew to try and meet that need.” As funding sources from grants and private donors began to diminish, the need for Community Action Services and Food Bank did not. “We’ve been in this hard place where we didn’t really address the programmatic cost and refocus on mission, and so that’s what we’re doing now,” Rangel said.  Rangel added that the board is analyzing which programs are grant-supported and where there are duplicated services with other nonprofits in Summit, Wasatch and Utah counties.  Community Action Services’ mission is to foster self-reliance. The nonprofit assisted 22,607 unduplicated individuals across all three counties in 2025 through food and nutrition programs. That’s more than 4.6 million pounds of food, more than 44,000 children’s meals and 136 family gardens.  The number of guests served by Community Action Services has increased by 166% in the past five years. In 2025, the nonprofit also helped provide nearly 2,600 nights of shelter through motel vouchers, prevented 77 evictions and helped 651 individuals spend nights in the Utah County warming center.  “We know that if Community Action is not able to provide those types of services, it’s not just devastating on our community members, but also on all the nonprofits, associations, governments and every other player in the game,” Rangel said. “We can’t let community action fail, and we know that with your help we can get through this.” Provo Mayor Marsha Judkins said she sees the impact Community Action Services has on the community.  “It is not just in Provo. I would just hope that we can all step up and support this extremely vital service that is in all our communities,” Judkins said.  Funding for the nonprofit comes from its role as a community action agency. From there, Community Action Services and Food Bank gets grants and donations.  “If we don’t fundraise this amount of money, and we don’t have sufficient cash reserves, there’s no way to stay operational,” Rangel said.  The goal is for the nonprofit to “get back on our feet” and have cash flow in addition to state and federal grants to serve the community. Rangel said that Community Action Services has reached out to national and state partners, community stakeholders and businesses.  Rangel said a woman visited a Community Action Services location this week and donated a dollar.  “(She) has used our services and says, ‘I don’t have much to give, but I have this dollar, and I know that you need it more than I do right now,’” Rangel said. “We had another senior come in on a fixed income and donated their entire Social Security check.” She added that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has been a partner and financial resource. But while the church funds food grants, it does not fund operational expenses.  “We have to keep our lights on. We have to pay our staff, and so while the church can support some of those direct services and payments to go directly to clients, it wouldn’t be able to help us in this situation,” Rangel said.  Though the Heber Food Pantry is closing, Rangel said Community Action Services will refer all individuals to the Christian Center of Park City and the food bank on Center Street. The post Community Action Services will close Heber City food pantry next month appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less