Warehouse opens Monday for local pantries

The new Heartland Food Reservoir Inc., a food bank that will become the main supply depot for area food pantries and charitable organizations, is scheduled for a soft opening tomorrow, March 1.

This is not a food pantry and is not open to the general public.

Only registered and inspected charitable food pantries can obtain food there, which is weighed and distributed to them for a 19 cents per-pound "maintenance fee," which helps pay for administration of the program such as keeping the lights on and replacing the food.

Based on 2007 population estimate of about 99,000 residents in Highlands County, 12.92 percent were considered "food-insecure," said Bill Stephenson, president of the Heartland Food Reservoir.

So there is a big need for these food pantries to keep operating here.

The building is located at 227 U.S. 27 S., behind the Sebring Lakeview Plaza.

"This is something that's never happened in the county before," said Stephenson in a previous report. "We're authorized to be a food bank in the state of Florida. We've been inspected by Tallahassee."

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.

The food reservoir has an 8-foot by 20-foot freezer and an 8-foot by 8-foot cooler.

Resources stretched

The resources of many food pantries in the region are already stretched to the limit - struggling to meet the new demands placed on them by the economy, said Stephenson.

Many spend hundreds of dollars a month and hundreds of volunteer hours are spent just to drive to Tampa to pick up the food. Some pantries supplemented food stocks locally using donated funds and discount grocery outlets.

For seven years, Stephenson has remained affiliated with the Church Service Center in Avon Park, which provided food for about 7,800 needy people, and as a result saw the need for a centralized warehouse.

It will be one agency to benefit from the reservoir.

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

The Church Service Center Inc., spent $1,490 on gasoline in 2009; and more than $33,000 for food. That number was up more than $3,000 from 2008. Its total expenses were $96,993 including office expenses.

Instead of driving to Tampa, large trucks will deliver the food to the food reservoir and local pantries, including the Church Service Center, will drive a few miles to Sebring.

The food reservoir truck will pick up large charitable food donations locally.

At some point, the new food reservoir could service as many as 31 of those food pantries, churches and other charitable organizations.

Thus far it has had 11 local food pantries and churches sign up. The purpose of the soft opening is to get a feel for what they're doing, said Stephenson.

More than 21,000 pounds of food awaited distribution Wednesday as employees and volunteers prepared for the soft opening. More food would soon be on its way, said Stephenson, including produce and other perishable items.

Charitable designation

The start-up business, which has a 501-3-C charitable designation, will employ several workers with the help of a Florida Back to Work Program grant and through another program called Experience Works.

The back to work program is administered by the Heartland-Workforce and that grant is funded through Sept. 30, said Roger Hood, president and CEO of the Heartland-Workforce. He could not say if that funding would be renewed.

Experience Works is a program that operates out of the Heartland-Workforce office but is funded separately through a federal grant. It provides employment and training for people 55 and older who need to work, said Elizabeth Ann O'Neill, who was at the food reservoir Thursday, following up with her three clients.

It has provided two warehouse men and an office manager, she said.

A trucker will be hired directly through Heartland Food Reservoir and subsidized through Heartland-Workforce, which has something to do with liability issues.

Stephenson himself works on a voluntary basis, as do the other board members.

The Experience Works employees were each hired to work part-time, with 20-hour weeks. They were sent Tuesday for special training at America's Second Harvest, in Tampa. Second Harvest will soon change a new name, Feeding America.

The office manager

Dianne Côte was hired to keep things running smoothly. Côte said she is a former nun with a French Canadian order, the Good Shepherd of Quebec. She left the convent in December of 1970 after a time of turmoil in the Catholic Church, she said. She went to college and holds a master's degree in special education.

"I guess I'm sort of on the front line here," she said Wednesday.

She will keep the books, pay bills, accounting, inventory, profit and loss sheets and deal with the agencies and appointments. Her work will allow her to purchase the supplemental insurance she needs.

"I've spent my life in the non-profit sector," said Côte on Wednesday. "This is kind of funny. I'm about to turn 70 and I'm still in it. It's always been with people who are poor or disabled.

She also has been the director of six non-profit organizations over the last 30 years, she said.

"So here I am doing the same kind of work, only now I'm getting paid," she said. "God has a sense of humor."

Warehouse men

Junior Ray Butler spent Wednesday morning spreading gray paint over dozens of pocked white spots on the floor where the first paint job on the cement floor of the reservoir's 5,000 square-foot warehouse didn't quite take.

"I'll be inventorying - weighing all in-bound, all out-bound and weighing all out-dated food," Butler said. "We'll also be shelving all donated goods."

Marcus Piety, 83, shuttled cases of canned goods by hand truck from large pallets, he placed some onto the donated store shelves across the room.

Both men are paid through Experience Works.

Piety is a retired local carpenter and trained cabinet maker, born in Hollywood, Fla., who moved to Avon Park, then to Sebring about 80 years ago. He learned about this job through the Heartland-Workforce.

"I've worked for most of the contractors in Highlands County," he said. "I'm supplementing my Social Security."

Salvation Army

Of the 11 local food pantries and church organizations signed up, the Salvation Army is one that will benefit.

Salvation Army Maj. Mary Holmes said Thursday she was very excited about the project.

"It's a great thing for Highlands County and the agencies will be able to make their dollars go further and help more people," said Holmes.

She said inspectors with Feeding America were at her building on Tuesday to inspect and make sure its food storage facility met its guidelines.

Holmes estimated in one year her facility goes through more than 9,000 pounds of food. They will begin using the food reservoir when they use up their present stock of donated food, but will continue to accept food donations.

The Salvation Army has its food pantry program that feeds about 50 families per month and it has its U.S.D.A. commodities program that distributes food to about 500 low income families per month.

It will still have to travel to Lakeland to pick up the food for its U.S.D.A. program.

Manna Ministries

Located in Lake Placid, Manna Ministries serves about 500 families a month, according to Marlene Christiansen, executive director.

"What the food bank will do for us is we currently go to Lakeland for low cost food," she said. "For us it's a half a truck of gas in our truck, which is about $50."

Until recently they had been driving to Lakeland twice per month, she added. There she pays 18 cents a pound.

She said she spends a great deal money in local grocery stores supplementing the other groceries that they need which on average costs them about $1 a pound.

The people they serve must meet certain income qualifications.

"We supply our food based upon the number of people in a family," she said.

Others benefiting

Other pantries and churches signed up included: Seventh Day Adventist Church, in Avon Park; the Ridge Seventh Day Adventist Church, in Avon Park; Bible Fellowship Church, in Avon Park; Parkway Free Will Baptist Church, in Sebring; and Victory Tabernacle Church, in Avon Park.

There may be several others that signed on, as well.

In all there are about 31 food pantries in Highlands County that could potentially benefit from the new facility.

Feeding America

Feeding America supplies food to more than 200 food banks and food rescue organizations that serve virtually every county in the United States as well as Puerto Rico, the Wikipedia Web site stated.

To volunteer your time, or to make private or corporate donations of food and money, call 863-385-7885.

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

FAST FACTS

This is not a food pantry and is not open to the general public.

The building is located at 227 U.S. 27 S., behind the Sebring Lakeview Plaza.