A Provo-based nonprofit that feeds thousands of families across Utah, Wasatch and Summit counties has laid off 15 employees, trimmed its Provo food pantry hours and plans to shut down its Heber City pantry entirely next month. Community Action Services and Food Bank says the cuts are necessary to keep its doors open at all heading into 2027, and it still needs to raise $1.25 million more before the end of the year to get there.
The organization announced the Heber City pantry closure for November, along with the staff reductions and shortened Provo hours, according to KUTV. The cuts come as the nonprofit tries to close a gap between rising demand for food assistance and donations that haven't kept pace, a dynamic Jessica Miller, the organization's chief impact officer, described as central to the crisis. As KSL reported, Miller said the organization is taking decisive steps to reduce operating costs while trying to preserve its ability to serve the community in 2027.
The Provo pantry's new, shorter hours amount to a seven-hour weekly cut, which will eliminate roughly 200 household appointment slots every week, per the station's reporting. That reduction will directly limit how many families the organization can serve at a time when need is only climbing. Community Action Services served more than 24,000 people over the past year, and 134 families sought its help for the first time in the past month alone, the outlet's report notes.
A Shortfall That Keeps Growing
The nonprofit had previously said it needed $100,000 just to stay operational through the end of October, and that smaller ask has since ballooned into a much larger one. Community Action Services now says it must raise $1.5 million by the end of 2026 to remain open in 2027, with community members, businesses and partners having donated or pledged nearly $250,000 toward that goal as of Monday morning, according to the same report. Miller said cost reductions alone will not solve the challenge and that community help is still needed.
Part of the strain comes from how certain funding actually works. Some grants only reimburse Community Action after the nonprofit has already paid out for rental and utility assistance, meaning the organization has to front the money before it sees a dime back, the station's report notes. That cash-flow bind has compounded the effects of flat donations against rising demand.
The funding trouble traces in part to a federal grant decision earlier this year. Utah's Department of Workforce Services chose not to select the organization's Circles USA program for the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families grant, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. That grant had funded about $1 million over three years in the past, the Tribune reported, making its loss a significant blow to the nonprofit's budget.
Conflicting Accounts On Heber Valley Operations
There's some inconsistency in the public record about the Heber pantry's status this year. The Tribune's July report said Community Action had completely ceased its operations in Heber Valley after losing funding, while the more recent reporting from KUTV and its sister station describes a Heber pantry that is still operating now but is planned to close in November. The discrepancy between those two accounts has not been clarified by the organization.
Community Action Services and Food Bank describes itself as running food programs, housing assistance and emergency shelter across Utah, Wasatch and Summit counties, according to its own site, communityactionprovo.org. The nonprofit is also seeking volunteers at the Provo food pantry to help serve households during the hours that remain, and it has posted donation and volunteering information on that same site.
Where Heber Families Can Turn
For individuals and families experiencing food insecurity in the Heber area, the organization has pointed to the Christian Center of Park City as a resource once its own Heber pantry closes. That nonprofit runs free food pantries in both Park City and the Heber Valley for anyone in need in Summit and Wasatch counties, according to its website, ccofpc.org. Its pantries are open Monday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., and serve hundreds of people monthly with free groceries, per the center's own materials, and customers can visit twice a month with proof of residency in either county.
The squeeze facing Community Action Services reflects a broader pattern across Utah. The Utah Food Bank says 445,000 Utahns, including one in five children, are now experiencing food insecurity, an increase of nearly 100,000 people in a single year, according to Utah Food Bank. The organization also reported that mobile pantry visits jumped an average of 35% in a single month last fall, with some locations seeing spikes of 80% to 90%, and that nearly half of food-insecure Utahns don't qualify for federal assistance at all.
Utah County's own numbers underscore the strain closer to home. An estimated 87,320 people in the county, or 12.8% of the population, were food insecure in 2023, including 33,210 children, according to a county food access profile from uah.org. Community Action Services has already trimmed its footprint once before, closing its Springville pantry a year ago after the facility's space was repurposed, a move that had previously helped hundreds of families access food each month, according to KSL.com.
