Food Bank almost finished moving into ‘dream’ facility
The interior of the new food bank facility is shown in Storey County.
After a decade of planning, the Food Bank of Northern Nevada staff will finish moving into their new building this week.
“It’s a dream coming true,” said Helyse Sina, spokeswoman for the Food Bank of Northern Nevada. “We spent so much time before just moving things around for space. This is going to be a lot more efficient for us.”
The food bank began moving last week into the Donald W. Reynolds Regional Food Distribution Center, east of Sparks in Storey County.
Cherie Jamason, FBNN president and CEO, said the new location is about three times larger than the store at 994 Packer Way in Sparks, and can accommodate 24 times more refrigerated and frozen food.
“It’s just kind of a crack up when you think of what we’re coming from,” said Jamason, who added office space was greatly needed for staff at the Sparks facility. “They’re on top of each other (in the Sparks building). There’s a room we have here with eight desks in it that used to be a storage room.”
The new location on 550 Italy Drive will be the region’s largest charitable food distribution center at 61,000 square feet, almost the size of a football field.
“I think the most wonderful thing, for us, is that we’ll be able to accept food from the community that was presently passing us by because we didn’t have enough capacity,” Jamason said.
Jamason said she estimates the organization will be able to distribute an additional 5 million pounds of food per year to hungry people in Northern Nevada and the Sierra.
“Now, we can easily break 8 (million) to 10 million (pounds of food) without breaking a sweat,” Jamason said.
Thomas Johnson, a warehouse driver for FBNN, said the extra space in the new facility makes it easier for him to work.
“It seems like it will be a lot more productive,” Johnson said. “With this working environment, I think you can get a lot more work done.”
This article appeared originally in Reno Gazette-Journal.
