Announcing The New Food Bank Headquarters

For years I have been keeping a secret. It is that the Food Bank Of Central and Eastern NC has a new headquarters. I am thrilled that I can finally shout it from the roof tops.
The Food Bank is a very frugal organization. Never wanting to spend any money on ourselves, but instead always putting money into getting food out to hungry people. As a member of the board we knew that we had out grown our old headquarters on Tar Heel drive in Raleigh years ago. At 48,000 square feet it was much too small, but we made due.
The board spent years considering all our options. Plenty of people wanted to build us a new building, but the locations were always much too far from the people who we serve and the volunteers who serve us. Location was a big issue for us. We also could not see building a fancy building. It goes against our mission.
We held out. We kept looking. We passed up big places in good locations that might be bio hazards. Then one day we got wind that the Old Raleigh Flea Market on Capital Boulevard might be willing to sell. After long negotiations with the family who owned the 108,000 square foot building on eleven acres we got it. That was just the beginning.
We started a private capital campaign and a renovation at the same time. I had to keep many secrets; that we bought the building, that we were renovating it and that I was chairing the board division of the capital campaign. If you asked me what I was doing, I might have said Food Bank stuff, but I was vague since I was really out shaking people down for pledges for our fabulous new building. I was not aloud to say anything until now and you know how hard that is for me.
Today it goes public! Couldn’t help it since the Food Bank moved last week in the midst of Mathew. It seems that whenever the Food Bank moves into a new building we also have a devastating hurricane. Moved into a new building a week before Fran, into a new branch in Greenville a week before Floyd and now this one.
We are going to need every inch of our more than double the space since what we know is that the after math of these hurricanes is a multiyear bump in the need of our services. We not only need to finish the capital campaign to pay for the building, but we need to increase our food capacity for the hurricane.  
If you are interested in seeing the building, or helping the Food Bank let me know. I am happy to drive you over and give you the tour. It is an exciting place that we hope we don’t outgrow for a very long time. We do know that everyone who encounters the Food Bank, as an agency who gets from from us to a volunteer who helps sort food will enjoy it so much more in our new home.