AUBURN – The food supplier for hundreds of soup kitchens, pantries and homeless shelters across Maine plans to open a food pantry of its own.

On July 1, Good Shepherd Food-Bank will open a gated area in a back corner of its Hotel Road warehouse and give away food.

The goal is to be running smoothly before the weather turns cold and those swelling energy bills come due, said Rick Small, Good Shepherd’s executive director.

“I’m pretty worried,” he said, mulling over the effects of $5-per-gallon heating oil. “I don’t know how folks who barely got by last year are going to fare this time.”

The step moves the food bank back into the business of putting food directly into the hands of hungry folks.

It’s been a while.

The charity began in the early 1980s as a gatherer of surplus food from grocers and meat packers. Almost immediately, the food bank became a supplier. For pennies a pound, Good Shepherd sold the food it gathered to soup kitchens, homeless shelters and child-care groups.

It now lists more than 600 member agencies, from Fort Kent to Kittery.

Good Shepherd tried running a pantry before, in downtown Lewiston. Eventually, Sisters of Charity took over the pantry and moved it to its current home, overlooking Kennedy Park.

Why do it again?

“Why not?” Small said. “Our mission is to get food to people.” With agencies reporting a big increase in demand, Good Shepherd has a responsibility to act, he said.

The demand has grown exponentially, said Kim Wettlaufer, executive director of the Trinity Jubilee Center at 247 Bates St.

When he began running the charity two years ago, the Thursday food pantry typically helped 30 to 40 families, Wettlaufer said. Last week, the number had risen to 150.

“We’re definitely seeing different faces,” he said.

At the nearby Sisters of Charity Food Pantry, the demand has been overwhelming.

“I’ve been doing this for 18 years,” Executive Director Joyce Gagnon said. “This is the worst I have ever, ever seen.”

The pantry has been serving 50 to 75 families each day. Though it gets much of its food from Good Shepherd, the quantities are limited. Food drives and cash donations are keeping the place afloat.

“The community is really kicking in,” Gagnon said. “We need more, though.”

She expects the coming winter will be unprecedented, both in the demand for food and in the pantry’s own needs. Located in the former Wallace School, a century-old brick building with little insulation, heating costs topped $2,000 a week last winter, Gagnon said.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” she said.

At Good Shepherd, details of how the food pantry will operate are uncertain. An agreement is in the works for an outside agency to run the still-unnamed entity, said Small, the executive director.

Sadly, it will be needed, he said. “I really think we’re going to get a slew of people.”