Food 'reservoir' to open in Sebring

Paperwork should be signed at 11 a.m. today for the creation of a food bank in Sebring, which will be able to service all 23-plus food pantries in Highlands County, according to Bill Stephenson, president of the Heartland Food Reservoir Inc.

"This is something that's never happened in the county before," said Stephenson on Wednesday.

For seven years, Stephenson has been affiliated to the Church Service Center in Avon Park, which provides food for 7,800 people, and as a result saw the need for a centralized warehouse where local food pantries can stock up without having to drive great distances.

Representatives from Second Harvest of Tampa Bay, a subsidiary of Feeding America, will sign the contract today at Heartland Food Reservoir's warehouse space, located at 227 U.S. 27 S., behind the Sebring Lakeview Plaza, just south of the Spas, Pools and Patio store, across from Lake Jackson.

"Feeding America has 205 food banks in the United States," he said Wednesday. "They're the largest network of food banks in the country, and as of 11 o'clock tomorrow morning we're going to be one of them.

"And what the food bank is, is an organization (that) collects and sorts and distributes food to the needy food pantries who give it to the people in need. If I wanted right now to do food, I'd have to drive to Tampa or to Lakeland. As of the first of March the warehouse will be right here."

Its motto is "Let no one go hungry."

Once it opens the door on March 1, its phone number will be 863-385-7885.

Only organizations that have a 501-3C designation will be permitted to pick up food at the reservoir and those have to be inspected by state inspectors.

"We're authorized to be a food bank in the state of Florida," said Stephenson. "We've been inspected by Tallahassee."

With the down-turn in the economy the resources of many food pantries have been stretched to the limit - struggling to meet the new demands.

"If you were to drive a van from here to Tampa and return full of food you've already spent about $80 and you've only gotten a week's worth of food," he said. "So you can't do this every week, week in and week out, because in a month's time you've just shot $320."

Instead, the food will now be delivered by Second Harvest, to the food reservoir, he said.

The Heartland Food Reservoir got a grant in 2009 for $16,000, used a percentage of that for food-handling equipment and bought about $14,000-plus worth of food.

They bought a fork lift, had to buy a scale that weighs up to 5,000 pounds, had to rent a 5,000-square-foot warehouse, and had to refurbish the building. They also received some donated construction work, and a donation of shelving from Sweetbay supermarket on which to store dry goods.

The food the food pantries pick up is not free, but it is discounted.

"That gives us the ability to pay our utilities, pay our rent and to keep the place going; so everything that goes out of there will be 19 cents a pound," he said.

"We're going to have a couple of employees, but we're going to have a ton of volunteers," he added.

Inside the building the food reservoir has an 8 by 20-foot freezer and it is expecting delivery of an 8 by 8-foot cooler.

The Heartland Food Reservoir Inc. also has a post office box address, at P.O. Box 7815, Sebring, Fla., 33872, so anyone wishing to make a tax-deductible donation is encouraged to do so, said Stephenson.