By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
Second Harvest Community Food Bank in St. Joseph is breaking ground today on a massive expansion project.
Executive Director Chad Higdon says more than $3 million was raised to help expand the food bank, a project he recalls being in the works as far back as 2007 when he joined the board.
“To add 11,000 square feet of cold storage expansion and adding two additional high docks and an area for agencies to come and pick up product that better facilitate local pantries coming and getting product,” Higdon tells KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr.
The project will be completed in two phases, the first phase being the expanded cold storage and the two new high docks.
Higdon says as more fresh produce is brought into Second Harvest to be distributed, the current cold storage space they had was not enough.
“Right now, we have a 400 square foot cooler we can get maybe 12 pallets in our current cooler,” Higdon explains. “It’s just antiquated, a little outdated, and it’s not big enough for what we need, so this is going to add a lot more space for us to really meet current distribution needs.”
The new expansion will also add two additional high docks and improvements to the parking area.
Higdon says the current setup creates inefficiency
“Two trucks headed out every morning, I’ll get there in the morning and sometimes we’ll have a truck or two waiting on us to unload a delivery, and so operating with one high dock that creates a tremendous bottleneck,” Higdon points out.
The expansion will add the two new high docks, which Higdon says will help them be more efficient
“It’s really going to add a lot of efficiency and really create a much more efficient distribution system for us,” Higdon says.
A groundbreaking ceremony was held for phase one of the project. The future phase two of the project will add more office space to the building.
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