When Valentina Sharp visits the Mary Rigg Neighborhood Center food pantry, she knows she’ll leave with groceries. Just as importantly, she knows she’ll be greeted by people who know her name.
“If you miss a day, they’re going to wonder where you’re at,” Sharp said. “They actually care.”
Sharp has utilized the pantry since 2019 and said the recently opened grocery store-style location has transformed the experience for neighbors in west Indianapolis.
“It’s 100 times better,” she said. “It’s a lot faster to get through the lines.”
Two neighbors shop at the new Mary Rigg pantry.
Mary Rigg Neighborhood Center’s new, expanded pantry allows guests to shop for items that fit their household’s needs. The larger facility also offers more shopping days than before, with expanded food options and improved accessibility.
For Sharp, who uses mobility aids and lives in a home that is not wheelchair accessible, the volunteer support inside the pantry makes a significant difference.
“I have a volunteer to help me,” she said. “They can pick the item off the ground for me because I can’t reach it off the ground. They’re just wonderful people, every single one of them.”
The pantry, a Gleaners network partner, serves a neighborhood where access to affordable, healthy food remains a challenge.
Mary Rigg President Heather Pease said the organization recently completed a neighborhood survey that identified food access as the community’s most pressing concern.
Mary Rigg’s new pantry on the west side of Indianapolis is helping neighbors access nutritious food.
“Far and away, the number one need identified in that survey was greater access to food,” Pease said.
The need is especially acute in west Indianapolis, which lacks many convenient full-service grocery stores and faces transportation barriers that can make reaching other food options difficult.
“We have a very large food desert,” Pease said. “Most of our neighbors, the only options they have for food locally are convenience stores.”
To address those challenges, Mary Rigg purchased a building near its main campus and converted it into a dedicated pantry space designed to feel more like a neighborhood grocery store. Gleaners’ network relations staff got the opportunity to walk the space before the purchase and provide input on have it might be best utilized.
“We started to dream about what it would be like to turn this into a grocery store-style food pantry, where guests could come through and make the choices that were right for their family,” Pease said.
The new location is making a difference for working families like Kiana Goodlow. As a mother of four whose children participate in Mary Rigg programs, the additional choice helps her stretch her grocery budget while keeping healthy foods on the table.
“I can shop and then pick the kids up. It’s more of a family feeling here,” Goodlow said.
A volunteer helps a neighbor select produce at the new Mary Rigg community pantry.
That sense of community extends beyond food assistance. Mary Rigg also offers youth programming, workforce development and family support services designed to help residents address longer-term challenges.
“First and foremost, we have to start with securing basic needs,” Pease said. “There’s no more important piece of that than food security.” The pantry’s shelves are stocked largely through its partnership with Gleaners. Pease said nearly every aisle reflects that collaboration.
“If you were to walk through our pantry on any given day, almost every shelf has been touched by the good work of Gleaners,” she said.
In its first month, the new pantry served nearly 400 families, representing almost 2,000 individuals. As of June 2026, the pantry had already exceeded the number of people served in all of 2025 — 4,983 people so far this year.
For Sharp, the pantry’s greatest impact can be measured in something less tangible than pounds of food distributed.
“They’re not looking down on you,” she said. “They’re like, ‘Hey, you’re a person. We’re going to treat you like a person.'”
