Feeding Northeast Florida opens expanded space

The largest food bank serving Northeast Florida has a newly renovated home amid a time of high demand for food assistance in the area.

Feeding Northeast Florida held a celebration Thursday for the new $23 million, 110-square-foot facility on Old Kings Road in the Bilitome community on Jacksonville’s Northwest side.

The organization works with retailers, manufacturers and farms to gather food for those in need. Feeding Northeast Florida serves Duval, St. Johns, Clay, Nassau, Baker, Putnam, Flagler, Bradford, Union, Alachua, Gilchrist, and Levy counties. One in 10 adults in that area is considered food insecure and one in seven children is.

Feeding Northeast Florida CEO Susan King said the new facility is more than just a warehouse; it is a place that can bring the community together in many ways. She said the organization kept the community in mind when designing the facility.

“We have event space we can make available. We have an education center where we can have community meetings,” King said. “Things that are not just about food but are about empowering and lifting up the communities that we’re helping to serve,”

The facility also has the capacity to quadruple the number of volunteers that can give their time.

Sarah Hall, vice president of strategic initiatives for the organization, said the previous building was too small for daily operations. It did not have enough storage space for the amount of food the organization needed to distribute, which limited the amount of fresh food accepted.

“Having a building of this size with these capabilities is going to massively transform the amount of fresh food that we can get out into the community and the volume of food that we can get out into the community,” Hall said.

She said the new facility has double the amount of space to store fresh and frozen foods.

Hall said the need for food assistance keeps increasing. So far this year, Feeding Northeast Florida has seen a 20% increase in the amount of food it has distributed compared to the same time last year.

Last year , Feeding Northeast Florida sent out 35 million pounds of food, a 17% increase from the height of the pandemic and a 106% increase from before the pandemic.

If you need help getting food, Feeding Northeast Florida has a tool to find food banks in your neighborhood at FeedingNEFL.org.

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