Gifts from the Heart distributes food from the old Coupeville fire station, and now it can call it home.

Central Whidbey’s food bank officially moved into the old fire station last week. It’s located on North Main Street, next door to the brand-new Coupeville Fire Station.

The site provides a convenient place to both store and distribute food.

“As far as clients in Coupeville is concerned, this is the food bank to them,” said Molly Hughes, president of Gifts from the Heart. Gifts from the Heart distributes food on the second and fourth Wednesday of every month.

Volunteers from Gifts from the Heart have been doling out non-perishable food at the fire station for the past two years but until now it couldn’t store food there.

The food had been stored at the Greenbank Farm and in the homes of several volunteers and then moved to the fire station for distribution.

“We outgrew it a long time ago,” Hughes said of the storage place at the Greenbank Farm.

Volunteers have been working for the past several weeks erecting and painting shelves inside the building they will share with the Boys and Girls Club. Lumbermens in Coupeville donated $1,200 worth of lumber for the shelves.

Other volunteers from the Central Whidbey Lions spent Thursday moving food from various locations to the fire station.

With a centralized location, Gifts from the Heart can provide a wider variety of food to families. The organization serves approximately 45 families in Coupeville and 20 families in Greenbank.

Hughes said refrigerators will be installed at the fire station. That way, the group can distribute juices, meats and dairy products. The refrigerators will also allow the group to store produce. One refrigerator has already been installed. Gifts from the Heart received $3,000 from Island Thrift and $10,000 from the Norcliffe Foundation in Seattle to fund the purchase of additional refrigerators.

Volunteers also worked to spruce up the old fire station. Such work included renovating the restroom.

To celebrate the new home, an open house takes place Thursday, Nov. 10 beginning at 5 p.m.

Central Whidbey Island Fire and Rescue still maintains ownership of the old fire station.

“It’s a fairly good use of the space,” Chief Joe Biller said of having Gifts from the Heart and the Boys and Girls Club share the space.

For those two groups to use the space, the organizations had to work out arrangements that met state requirements.

Biller said, because the fire station moved out of the building, the old station would have to be declared surplus and sold were it to be abandoned. However, the fire district will continue to use part of the building as records storage. And the two groups will pay $367 a month to use the station. That amount is divided between the two groups with Gifts from the Heart paying a third and the Boys and Girl’s Club paying the remainder.

Biller said he worked with the state auditor to come up with the arrangement that allows the district to concentrate on its mission of providing fire protection and medical aid to the area, while allowing the building to be used for other purposes as well.