Food Bank to Move From Millwood
The Food Bank for Westchester, based in Millwood for more than a decade, will vacate its current home later this year after recently signing a long-term lease for warehouse and office space in Elmsford.
The announcement was made Wednesday morning that the Food Bank will move to a 37,000-square-foot facility at 200 Clearbrook Road this fall. The new facility has nearly three times the space and will enable the organization to triple its food distribution capacity.
It is expected the move will take place in late October or November after reconstruction and installations of a 5,000-square-foot freezer, a 2,000-square-foot refrigerator, warehouse racking and a clean room for food repacking is complete. The Food Bank, formed 23 years ago, has seen the demand for emergency food grow. Last year, there was a 30 percent increase in demand, resulting in seven million pounds of food distributed. In each of the last two years food distribution has increased by about a million pounds.
As demand has escalated, The Food Bank’s current warehouse, located at 358 Saw Mill River Road, has been overcrowded, causing logistical problems and forcing the organization to turn away food donations, said Jeanne Wilcox, the organization’s communications manager.
A larger space had been sought for several years and will allow the Food Bank to expand emergency hunger-relief services.
The Food Bank for Westchester is one of eight food banks in the state and collects, warehouses and distributes food to more than 200 local hunger-relief organizations. It is believed that about 200,000 Westchester residents are hungry or at risk of hunger, mostly children and seniors.
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