The Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo County hosted a Groundbreaking Ceremony this morning for their new central facility in San Luis Obispo. The facility is a result of the organization’s decision to consolidate their current warehouses in North and South County.
Food Bank staff, board members, agency partners, and supporters attended the event. The program included messages from Food Bank Board Chair Stewart Ehrhardt Jr., SLO County Supervisor Adam Hill, and Food Bank CEO Carl Hansen.
The centralized facility is being built on a plot of land on Kendall Road in San Luis Obispo. It will be designed to suit the Food Bank’s operational needs and will include loading docks, increased storage space, and refrigeration capabilities for fresh produce. It will also see significant cost savings in overhead expenses, which will allow the Food Bank to provide additional nutritional food to the people they serve.
In the last decade, the Food Bank has tripled its services; and, in 2015 alone will distribute 6.3 million pounds of nutritious food to our neighbors living with hunger. This new centralized warehouse will make the process of distributing food more efficient as services and programs function from one common space. The facility and streamlined distribution processes it creates are crucial in allowing the Food Bank to continue helping those who struggle to meet their basic needs, and increasing the overall health of our community.
The facility is expected to be complete by the summer of 2016. For more information about the work of the Food Bank Coalition in our county, visit www.slofoodbank.org.