Ozarks Food Harvest is moving to a new state of the art facility. KSMU’s Katie Easley went to visit the staff of the food bank just as they were packing up.
Men in hard hats are removing shelves from the walls of the old warehouse near the intersection of Chestnut Expressway and Glenstone. Ozarks Food Harvest will officially start operating out of its new location on Cedarbrook by the end of this month.
Denise Gibson, spokeswoman for the food bank, says the new building is 46,000 square feet and will allow the organization to store over two times the amount of food that its old warehouse did.
“This is going to be an exciting week for us at Ozarks Food Harvest and the community because we are going to be leaving a facility that we’ve outgrown," Gibson said.
With hunger on the rise, Ozarks Food Harvest is projecting it will soon need to feed nearly 65,000 individuals from the 29 counties it serves each month. Gibson says in the past the food bank has been forced to turn away food donations due to a lack of space.
All of the food has already been transported to the new location at 2810 Cederbrook and the food bank is receiving all new donations there. The racks and refrigerators used in the old facility have been donated to other food banks across the nation.
For KSMU News, I’m Katie Easley.