Columbia Gorge Food Bank (CGFB) has received two $50,000 from Google in order to expand their hunger relief and food security programs throughout the Gorge.
One grant will go toward a new warehouse and Community Food Center in Port of The Dalles, which will serve to replace the one they currently have, as CGFB has outgrown their current facility, said Sharon Thornberry, CGFB manager and rural communities liaison at the Oregon Food Bank.
“We have, for four years, distributed food from a 2,000 square foot facility, which is including the cooler and walk-in freezer,” Thornberry said. “That’s far too tiny a space for the amount of food that we move in a year’s time.”
The new warehouse will be in a 10,000 square foot building, which will allow them to expand their services and have more space to be involved in and host community activities. According to Thornberry, the funds from Google will go toward furnishing the flex space and the community room, where they’ll be able to host classes such as nutrition education and cooking classes.
“We’ve had requests from a lot of different organizations that would like to be able to use our space and that’s what it’s for,” Thornberry said.
The flex space is larger, she said, and will be a space for Windy River Gleaners to run their food pantry from on Tuesday mornings and hopefully also on an evening at some point, to fill the need of an evening food pantry.
Artist renderings of the concepts for the new Columbia Gorge Food Bank warehouse and food center.
Contributed photo
Thornberry said the flex space would also be used for the community backpack program and packing migrant farm worker boxes.
“The other thing that’s essential in us having a larger space is in times of disaster because we don’t just serve the most food insecure people,” she said. “We serve everybody in disaster. And we’ve not had a proper place to do that.”
The second $50,000 grant is for the food bank to invest in food security, Thornberry said, which they will do primarily through grants of their own to community partners.
One example is for the farmers market, which will receive $5,000 for their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) match program. This match program essentially doubles the money that SNAP recipients can spend on fresh food.
“We also just did a grant to The Next Door for propane for Native families living along the river, out of the (Google) funds,” Thornberry said.
Most of the funds from the second grant will be expended in the next fiscal year, starting on July 1.
The Columbia Gorge Food Bank is located at 3620 Crates Way in The Dalles. They are open 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. For more information visit oregonfoodbank.org or their Facebook page, at Columbia Gorge Food Bank.
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