The Lord’s Cupboard Food Pantry in Minot closed Oct. 19 and will remain closed through Oct. 23 after one volunteer at the food pantry tested positive for COVID-19, said Gerald Roise, chairman of the Welcome Table that oversees the food pantry.

The food pantry is located at 1725 West Burdick Expressway and is normally open Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

“We serve 125 families per day that we are open,” said Roise. “We know that it’s impacting a lot of families negatively.”

Food pantry volunteers have exercised extreme caution and are required to wear masks, according to Roise. People picking up food at the pantry are asked to keep their windows rolled up. Volunteers take the food out to cars or they place it on a table for the families to pick up and load themselves. Roise said the food pantry has not been requiring the clients they serve to wear masks, but he said they are strongly urging people to wear them when the pantry is able to reopen.

Roise said only one person associated with the food pantry has tested positive. He said she is doing well and was bewildered that the entire pantry was shut down due to her illness, but the board is following the procedure that has been set up for such an event. He said the person who tested positive probably did not have a lot of contact with others there but there is no way to know for sure who might have been exposed. A number of the volunteers are retired and elderly and might be at higher risk if they were to develop COVID-19. The board will wait to see how widespread the virus might be among people there before it decides when to reopen.

The Lord’s Cupboard posted a notice of the temporary closure this week on its Facebook page. Roise said the board will post updates on the Facebook page and notify the public when the food pantry is reopened.