From the outside, the Deseret Pasta facility of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints mirrors many other area warehouses and businesses.

However, inside is a work and an effort that reaches around the corner and across the country, and into the pantries of the needy.

Joe Love, technical manager over processing for Bishop's Storehouse Services of the LDS Church, said the purpose of the pasta plant is threefold.

"The pasta plant exists to care for the poor and the needy. That's its primary purpose," Love said. "Secondary to that is to provide service and work opportunities for members [of the LDS Church]. And then in addition, it also serves to provide some products for family home storage."

In the center of the plant is a pasta maker that can pump out 650 pounds of spaghetti per hour. The plant also produces macaroni, lasagna, angel hair and various kinds of egg noodles. Many of these products are shipped to bishop's storehouses across the United States and Canada, where needy individuals can replenish their personal stores at home. Other products are sent to dry pack cannery facilities where local members are able to can and purchase products for their home storage.

Though the machinery may seem to dominate the facility, it is the spirit of giving shown by the plant's volunteers which truly is the heart of the operation. On a recent weekday, volunteers Thomas Gwynn and Thomas Fisher packed spaghetti into boxes as it came off the line after a 13-hour journey from raw ingredients to edible noodles. The job requires quick hands and a gentle touch to not break or crush the finished product.

With a goal of providing work and service opportunities, the plant has many jobs awaiting those who come each day. Plant Manager Mike Stover never knows if the next shift of volunteers will include strong young people or more frail seniors. Stover can find a task suited to anyone's abilities.

"We get a new shift of people every four hours," Stover said. "I like the end product, and what it's doing; the spirituality of it."

Volunteers come from local LDS wards and stakes, as well as individuals who are receiving product from the storehouses who may not have the means to purchase the products they receive. Instead they pay through their labors.

To Stover and the five employees who work at the plant, it doesn't matter why people come to work. Everyone is needed, and once they put on hairnets and aprons everyone looks the same.

"We don't ask the circumstances," Stover said. "They get some self-esteem to work for what they're receiving. That's the part we like the most."