A no-questions-asked pantry that has been serving the Arnold community for two years has found a new home in the city.

The Speed Family Blessing Box & Pantry will be located to Real Life Church on Freeport Road at Drey Street by Nov. 1, founder and CEO Chelsey Speed said Friday.

Her nonprofit had to find new quarters after the Fifth Avenue building it has been operating out of, the Arnold No. 2 fire department’s former bingo hall, was sold.

Since opening in Arnold in 2022, the pantry has been serving 500 to 700 people each month with about a dozen volunteers, said Speed, a Lower Burrell resident.

“We’re still here for them,” she said. “We’re excited to be able to continue.”

The effort started in 2020 as a pantry box in front of her family’s home, then in Penn Hills. As it grew, they sought nonprofit status in 2021 and moved into Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church in Verona, before outgrowing that space and moving to Arnold.

Arnold Mayor Shannon Santucci, who operates The Tomb outreach ministry, is glad that Speed is staying in the city.

Santucci said they became friends when Speed was in Verona, and they have partnered on projects.

“She has been a blessing to the community,” Santucci said. “She is committed to making sure that no one goes without food or whatever else they need. It would be a tragedy if she left.”

To prepare for the upcoming move, Speed said she has been giving away food, supplies and equipment so they have less to relocate. That has included making donations to other groups and organizations in the region as well as to relief efforts for flood-ravaged North Carolina through Cameron Yockey of Murrysville, whose real estate office is in Harrison.

Items headed to North Carolina include medical supplies, pet food, water, toiletries, diapers, wipes, formula, adult briefs, protein powder and feminine hygiene products, Speed said.

“We don’t have a lot left to take,” she said.

Because of the looming move, Speed has had to find other locations for upcoming events.

A purse bash fundraiser will be held at 2 p.m. Oct. 13 at MJ’s Bar & Grille in Arnold. An annual spaghetti dinner will be held Nov. 3, but a location has not yet been decided.

A free Thanksgiving dinner catered by Tastefully Blessed Kitchen & Smokehouse will be held from noon to 2 p.m. Nov. 28 at Real Life. It will be eat-in or take out, and Speed said she will drive food down to the Arnold flats for those who can’t get up the hill.

“I want people to have Thanksgiving dinner,” she said. “That’s important.”

For now, Speed said she remains open at the former bingo hall, 1702 Fifth Ave. Food deliveries still will be coming.

“We’re not stopping it until we move. People need it,” she said. “We will do our best to give them whatever we can.”

While not far away at Real Life, Speed knows that some of the people she serves are seniors and disabled who can’t get to the top of the hill on their own. For them, she said she will deliver food.

“We just want to provide a service,” she said.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)