Second Harvest moving forward with expansion project

By Harry Loomis

Second Harvest Community Food Bank is getting the ball rolling on its facility expansion, with a groundbreaking ceremony planned later this month.

The organization is preparing to add an 11,500-square-foot cold storage, high dock and agency loading expansion to its longtime location on Douglas Street. The groundbreaking ceremony is set for March 22.

“Right now, we’re pretty tight on cold storage capacity,” said Chad Higdon, CEO of Second Harvest. “We only have a 400-square-foot cooler. Most years we’re distributing over 3 million pounds of produce. The organization has just evolved over the years, and there’s definitely a need for more cold storage capacity to support, to support distribution of fresh produce, lean proteins. That’s what we’ve been working on.”

The organization was awarded $1.6 million in American Rescue Plan Act funds to allow the project to move forward.

“We’ve done a lot in terms of soliciting local county governments for ARPA dollars,” Higdon said. “A lot of them have come on board to support us just because we are out there serving low-income families throughout 19 counties. It really all is coming together and we’re getting a lot of support.”

The project won’t just give the organization more storage area; it will also help improve the location’s parking and traffic flow.

“We really are looking at how we can separate heavy truck traffic from commuter traffic and we also have the walking trail so pedestrians out there,” Higdon said. “The entire project’s going to make our distribution and our facility a lot safer and more efficient. We’re really excited to see it all come together.”

Second Harvest has hired a local contractor and is currently helping to go through bids for subs for the project.