The newest local food pantry is a product of a community in need and a community willing to help.

The Stratmoor Hills Community Center, located in a strip mall behind the 7-Eleven on B Street in south Colorado Springs, will help level out some of the area’s economic inequalities, a community leader said.

Neighborhood unemployment is estimated at 40 percent, officials say. Two convenience stores are the only food shops in the area, and about 40 percent of residents do not own a car. The community center is the only food pantry in that area of the city.

Many neighborhood children attend Harrison School District 2, where 69 percent of students received free or reduced lunch in the 2010-11 school year. Karen Howard, a teacher at Harrison High School, said the food pantry would benefit residents.

“Access is such a problem for some of these families,” Howard said. “It’s absolutely needed in this part of town. It will be well-used.”

The Stratmoor Hills center is an extension of Meadow Park Community Center, its only expansion in 30 years.

“We have wealth and poverty that are neighbors in that section of town,” said Brian Kates, Meadow Park’s program coordinator. “If we can try to equal the playing field it’ll be a more cohesive group of neighbors and more sustainable environment for everyone to live.”

The food pantry is a group effort. The strip mall’s landlord offered a rock-bottom, $400-a-month rent, paid for by Stratmoor Hills United Methodist Church and Westside Cares.

“If we put our resources together we can make a big difference,” said Scott Lovaas, minister of community life for Broadmooor Community Church. Lovaas helped Kates organize the pantry, which opened in May.

The center is open just two hours a week, but Kates hopes to expand its hours. The volunteer-run center has been serving about 50 people each week, he said. Donations are slowly increasing.

“We’re going to grow slowly because we don’t want to risk going beyond our means,” Kates said.

Austin Padilla, of Aurora, speaks to the mock shuttle crew from the mission control center Friday at the Challenger Learning Center of Colorado. The dependents of National Guard members from Colorado and Missouri visited the center to watch the last launch of the NASA’s space shuttle, then conducted their own mission at the center. Photo by CHRISTIAN MURDOCK/The Gazette