Rebuild Food for People

Following the sewer disaster that occurred at Food for People’s main site, we are moving forward with plans to rebuild a food bank facility that will ensure every person experiencing hunger in Humboldt County can access nutritious foods, and local children, seniors, and families can connect with services that address the root causes of hunger and poverty.

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Food for People’s aging building went from useable and overcrowded to requiring evacuation due to failed infrastructure amid a sewer inundation on February 28, 2020. This disaster struck a tough blow to Food for People’s facility and operations, but we have persevered and are ready to move forward, from the figurative ashes, to build a new and improved food bank facility.

Since the pandemic, Food for People has been hard at work distributing emergency foods through the use of temporary leased spaces. However, this is not a long-term solution to the emergency response needs for the future. We currently lack a permanent facility to provide food assistance to the community.

We will expand services by rebuilding our facility and adding warehouse space.

This will enable us to better support and enhance our county-wide network of 17 pantries and 18 diverse hunger relief, advocacy, and job training programs.

Expanded Services – We will build space for partners to connect people with an array of community support services that promote stability and lead to a better quality of life.

Expand Job Training - To improve employment prospects for people experiencing adversity by providing work skills in warehouse operations, front desk reception, and more.

Improve the quality of food we serve by expanding cold storage to prioritize healthy foods and reduce food waste.

Large Choice Pantry where people have enough space to choose their food with greater dignity.

Added Warehouse  - Expanded cold and dry storage to accept large-scale food donations and fully meet the food needs of our programs.

Disaster Response to serve everyone during a pandemic, emergency, or natural disaster.

An innovative flexible building design will allow us to change our layout, expanding storage or service space as required to address the needs of the current crisis while looking forward.

We are undertaking this project now because it is needed to ensure the health of our community.

Our community struggles with high cost of living, housing shortage, and low wages.

21% of Humboldt County’s population lives in poverty according to census data.  Food for People would need to double operations to meet this need.

Seniors are the largest growing demographic in need of food assistance.

Healthy, affordable foods are hard to access in rural areas, where there are few, if any, places that provide it.

Food for People is the designated food relief organization during a natural disaster, emergency, or pandemic for all of Humboldt County.

The pandemic has had a dramatic impact on the need for food assistance in our community.  The health and economic impacts of the pandemic will be felt for some time to come. Food for People needs to be there to respond and is on the front line in times of crisis.

We need a building that will have the space to be effective and efficient during community disasters and will also allow us to serve our community into the future.