FOOD for Lane County assistant warehouse manager Rob Radley sorts food at the main warehouse in Eugene. The organization is raising money to remodel the building and add much-needed areas for perishable foods. Chris Pietsch/The Register-Guard
FOOD for Lane County is asking for the community to help fundraise $500,000 in hopes of renovating its Bailey Hill warehouse, which opened in 1999, as soon as early January.
The local food bank, a network of more than 4,000 volunteers and 150 partner agencies, already has raised $9 million of its $9.5 million yearslong capital campaign. The “Build to Serve” campaign to increase the nonprofit’s capacity began in 2017 and funding went toward purchasing and retrofitting the West Broadway Distribution Center. The center opened in September 2019, just in time, it would turn out, to serve the urgent need that emerged alongside the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Initially, the demand for food increased, right after the onset of the pandemic in early 2020 March, April, May, a lot of people were thrown out of work,” Executive Director Tom Mulhern said. “They were scared, they were going to food banks in the same way that people were cleaning out the shelves at grocery stores.”
Learn more about the campaign online at supportfflc.org.
By Tatiana Parafiniuk-Talesnick, Register-Guard