When the demand for food, clothing, and diapers surged during the pandemic, Partners INW quickly outgrew the walls of its converted church. Now, the Spokane Valley-based nonprofit is preparing to move into a former Ziggy’s Home Improvement store that it recently purchased.

This $5.5 million building acquisition will double the nonprofit's capacity to serve struggling families while preserving its founding mission of providing dignity and care.

Partners INW is currently located at 10814 E. Broadway, about four miles west of its new home at 17002 E. Sprague. The 60,000-square-foot former home improvement store is conveniently located in front of a bus stop, a resource that many of the clients the organization serves are excited about, says Sarah Henderson, director of development for Partners INW.

The organization has an ongoing $11 million capital campaign project that aims to convert the former warehouse into a state-of-the-art community hub, she adds. The nonprofit is nearing its goal, with just $2.4 million left to raise.

Spokane Valley-based Lydig Construction Inc. is the contractor for the renovations. Spokane-based ALSC Architects PS designed the project.

The Ziegler family, owners of Ziggy’s Home Improvement stores, sold the building on Sprague to Partners INW in 2023 and donated $1 million in equity toward the project. Ziggy’s Home Improvement will move out of the space in December, and renovations on the space will start in spring 2026 and last about four to five months, Henderson says. The Ziegler family has also been leasing the space back from Partners until they are fully moved out.

“They’re a pretty incredible partner,” Henderson says about the Ziegler family. “They’re currently storing 200,000 diapers for us in their back area.”

Partners INW was founded 75 years ago as Spokane Valley Partners. The nonprofit began as a coalition of churches to address post-World War II poverty, says Henderson.

Partners INW provides food, clothing, and diapers, serving more than 15,000 people each month. Its programs include distributing about 4 million pounds of food annually through Second Harvest and grocery rescue programs, supplying senior food boxes to 600 individuals, and sending weekend meal bags to students through the Food for Thought program, which will soon merge with Second Harvest’s Bite2Go East program, she says.

Partners also operates a free clothing bank designed like a mini thrift store and runs the region’s largest diaper bank, which has grown from 100,000 diapers distributed in the first five years to a projected 1 million this year, Henderson notes. In addition, the organization manages emergency utility assistance for Vera Water & Power and Avista Corp., helping families keep essential services during times of crisis.

The organization is staffed by 12 employees and supported through the help of 300 volunteers, Henderson says. Partners' vision for the new location is to create a wraparound hub of support with potential partners such as Second Harvest; Community Health Association of Spokane, known as CHAS Health; Catholic Charities; and Frontier Behavioral Health on-site.

“We are meeting people in their time of crisis,” Henderson says. “We are serving double in these first six months compared to the first six months of last year. I think with Medicaid and SNAP and the fear of those being cut and the economy, we just aren’t seeing a slowdown.”