WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — What do you do with a life-sized spoon? You break ground with it! Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC spooned and shoveled dirt at their new location in Whitaker Park, which is the former RJ Reynolds manufacturing campus.
As the food bank gets ready to celebrate 40 years of servicing families in 18 counties from Boone to Burlington, the organization is looking toward putting all the moving parts under one roof in a new hub facility by this time next year.
"Our current buildings are in various places, this puts us all under one roof and makes us more efficient and it puts all our refrigerated storage in one place which means more fresh food to folks in need," said Eric Aft, CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank.
The need has been great, especially over the last 12 months of COVID. In that last year, 50 million pounds of food was distributed. For context, the food bank was distributing just 9 million pounds of food in 2009.
"It's inspiring and humbling to see all of this come together and it's going to be fantastic for our workforce and the thousands of volunteers who make this work every day," said Aft.
The 139,192 square foot headquarters facility will include warehouse space, job training, and educational services for Providence Culinary Training.
The capital campaign for fundraising, Hunger for Change surpassed its initial $10 million goal and how has $275,000 to reach the $13 million stretch goal.
WFMY NEWS 2 IS PARTNERING WITH THE SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK: TANYA'S 2 WISHES
WFMY News 2's Tanya Rivera turns 50 in July! That's a milestone birthday so she gets to make 2 wishes! She's not keeping those wishes a secret, and she needs you to help make those wishes come true.
Wish #1 - Help Others
Wish #2 - Spread Joy
The goal is to collect enough food to feed 50,000 people. We can reach that goal with both food and monetary donations. You can bring a donation out to the Harris Teeter at Greensboro's Friendly Shopping Center from 6 a.m. - 6 p.m. on Tuesday, July 20. You can also donate money online by clicking here!
In order to grant her second wish of spreading joy, anyone who comes out to the event that day, whether they donate food or not, will be able to spin the WFMY News 2 wheel and walk away with a prize!* (*Prizes available while supplies last)
Businesses contributing prizes (in alphabetical order):
- All Pets Considered
- Ben & Jerry's
- Burlington Sock Puppets
- Carolina Disco Turkeys
- Carolina Theatre
- Cheesecake Factory
- Cheesecakes by Alex
- Chick Fil A
- Dame's Chicken and Waffles
- Greensboro Grasshoppers
- Harris Teeter
- International Civil Rights Center and Museum
- Pelicans SnoBalls
- Regal Cinemas
- Scoop Zone
- Second Harvest Food Bank
- Sephora
- Shoe Market
- Something Barowed
- WFMY News 2
