Not vandalized! A former mini food pantry and library was dumped near 3rd Street in downtown McMinnville after it had been taken down by its owner. The mini library and food pantry, formerly located around 11th and Davis, was taken down earlier in the week and left outside as a ‘free’ item, according to the residence owner.

A post on Facebook indicated that a mini library and food pantry was discarded in the Golden Valley Brewery parking lot (on the morning of Sunday, Jan 26, 2025) and being locked up by staff for safekeeping until its owner could be identified to retrieve the item.

Staff from Golden Valley Brewery (GVB) confirmed on the phone that they were holding the box and briefly described two individuals who purportedly dumped it near their parking lot. In addition to the phone call to GVB to confirm this story, I went to Golden Valley to take the above pic and spoke to the owner of the residence that formerly housed the blue box.

Larger than this individual act of vandalism is the effect that this act may have on other mini-libraries and panties in this community. In a city with numerous picturesque tiny libraries located in the front lawns of homes, the public can rest assured that this wasn’t a targeted act of vandalism. Just, seemingly, a couple people who took a free small wooden box that once fed minds and bellies and dumped it across town as trash.

-Andrew Brunello