Seven broken windows leave a Herriman pantry that fed 20,000 people without its mobile pantry

HERRIMAN — The white bus parked at Salt Lake Academy was meant to be the Compassion Community Center's next step: a pantry that could travel to families who could not come to it.

Seven of its windows were broken instead. The bus cannot be driven until the glass is replaced, and the Herriman nonprofit has paused much of the work it does 12.

The center is not small. All West Fiber, which presented its annual food-bank donation to the center in January, reported that the center served and supported more than 20,000 individuals across Herriman and surrounding communities in 2025, through weekly food-bank events, mentorship and support services, and a pop-up pantry that fed more than 200 families 3.

It does that without a permanent home of its own, and it has been trying to change that for at least two years. In December 2024, Cortney Denison, then described as the center's food bank director, said the center would soon move to a bigger location 5. In January, All West reported the center was still "working towards securing a permanent building," calling it "a critical step that will increase visibility and expand its ability to serve the community" 3. Denison is described in that account as the center's executive director 3.

The bus was supposed to close part of the gap. Kristen Lemon, who helps lead the center's efforts, said finding one the donations could cover was hard. "It was rough to find one that was in our budget from donations that we received," she said 1.

It was parked at Salt Lake Academy, the Herriman charter school whose executive director, Sam Gibbs, started the center. The school houses the bus and the center's other supplies 14. Gibbs said the bus sat where the school's cameras do not reach, so he could not tell who damaged it. "We moved it to a place where it was more prevalent, so we could monitor it," he said 1.

The center decided not to report the damage to police. "I actually don't want anybody to get in trouble; I just want people to know that it's not okay to vandalize things," Lemon said 1.

The repair now competes with food. "Money that we had set aside for other things and to pay for other things now has to be put into this glass repair," Lemon said. "And eventually, that money would have went to the food" 1.

The center's fundraising base is local and modest. All West Fiber, a Kamas-based internet provider, said in January that it had donated $4,500 across nine food banks in Utah and Wyoming, and that it presented that year's in-person donation to the Compassion Community Center 3. The company described the center as operated by volunteers and quoted Denison thanking it for a donation that would "help us unify our community members to further help serve Herriman and surrounding communities" 3.

The deadline the center has set for itself is Thanksgiving. "For multiple years a lot of families have been relying on us for their Thanksgiving dinners," Lemon said 1. The center said its mission had not changed. "We want to continue loving and serving our neighbors, making sure families know they aren't forgotten," it said 1.

Donations can be made through a PayPal link the center published, and it is asking for food donations and volunteers as well 1. Neither report said what the repairs will cost, and the center has not published a figure 12.

What the center needs before Thanksgiving is not complicated: glass, money and a bus that runs. What it has is a parking space at a school, a volunteer base, and families who have relied on it for years 13.