BOUNTIFUL -- Representatives of various faiths and community organizations came together Saturday for the grand opening of the Bountiful Community Food Pantry. "We're all in this together," said pantry director of operations Dorothy Willhite. And that was evident looking at those who attended. The Rev. Kent Ikeda, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Bountiful, offered the opening prayer, while Wendell Wild, a council member of the Utah North Area and public affairs representative for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave the dedicatory prayer. Bountiful Mayor Joe Johnson and Woods Cross Mayor Kent Perry were there, as was Richard Watson, the chair of the county's Democratic party. Others included members of supporting organizations and churches. About 60 people in all attended.

Darlene Phillips, a member of Bountiful Community Church and pantry volunteer, told a story outlining how often pantry volunteers had to move the food inside Bountiful Community Church, where the pantry was housed.

Each time she mentioned the food being moved, a can of tomato soup was moved down a line of pantry volunteers.

"It's appropriate that the tomato soup was a can from Desert Canning," executive director Chuck Swallow said, "because we could not do this service without the support of our LDS neighbors. Every time we needed help, they've been there," he said.

He also praised Johnson, who stepped in and helped move the paperwork for the building process along.

Phillips also noted the appropriateness of the tomato soup, pointing out that tomatoes used to be called love apples, and underneath everything done at the pantry is love.

In a typical month, the pantry serves about 800 individuals, Willhite said, but Swallow added that during the holiday, that number goes up to as many as 3,000.

The pantry began in the 1950s, but on Saturday, two stories emerged as to how the pantry had its beginning. Phillips said that it began whenever a pastor at the church received a request for food, his wife would run over to the church with a little food from their kitchen cupboard,

Later, he began keeping some canned goods in the closet in the minister's office. The amount grew until his clothes no longer fit in it. It grew to two closets, then into closets in the children's Sunday School classrooms, then into hallways, then it also took up room upstairs and down, filled the narthex, and up the hall to the sanctuary.

But longtime member Sara Bishop said the pantry had its real beginning when a pastor was visited by a poor person needing help and he asked Bishop to take the woman in. "I became her caregiver, and that was the beginning of the pantry," she said..

However it began, it is now a totally separate organization from the church, with its own 501-3C charter, board of directors and the ability to raise its own funds.

Unlike most food pantries, the Bountiful Community Food Pantry has operated exclusively with volunteer help.

mwilliams@davisclipper.com