Food for People reveals new HQ after trying year
One year after a sewage backup flooded Food for People’s Eureka headquarters, the nonprofit is looking toward a bright future and a brand new facility. The new building will provide additional storage and food capacity to better serve Humboldt County.
“Looking back at it it’s been a crazy year, sometimes I’m not sure how we accomplished all that we did,” Carly Robbins,
Food for People’s Development Director told the Times-Standard on Thursday. “It’s kind of a testament to our team being really resilient and also thinking really creatively.”
Just a few short weeks before Gov. Gavin Newsom issued the statewide stay-at-home order, on Feb. 28, 2020, Humboldt County’s largest food bank was inundated with thousands of gallons of water, wiping out its food supply, destroying the facility and leaving behind a $300,000 tab.
“The 14th Street facility served as the main hub for all of our staging distribution,” Robbins said. “In the immediate, we had to shut down for a few days if not a week. Any food that was touched by sewage water had to be tossed. We brought in New Life Service Company for hazard mitigation work, they did the initial assessment. Sewage water had whipped up into the walls and was pretty much everywhere.”
Food for People immediately reached out to the city of Eureka and Public Works staff were onsite within minutes, Robbins said.
“We also asked if there was any way they could help us (with a temporary facility) and they offered us the use of the old Eureka Chamber of Commerce building on Broadway,” she said. “We are very, very thankful to the city. We were able to pick up where we left off distributing foods within a week or two after the sewer disaster. It was really important for the community for us to get those food services back up and running.”
“In addition to the chamber building, we are now renting I think four different warehouse spaces now. We’ve had some very generous community members who reached out to us offering spaces for us to use,” Robbins added.
After the sewage disaster, Food for People hired Greenway Partners to assess the flooded site and decided the best path forward would be to tear down the old facility and rebuild.
“It was an old building already and with the damage sustained the amount it would cost to get it back up to working order compared to just rebuilding it offered a lot more benefits,” Robbins said. “Rebuilding gives us the opportunity to optimize things and give us some more storage space which had been a pretty big need for us.”
The former facility has been fully demolished. Now, Food for People is going through the permitting process to begin construction in a few months.
“We’re going to go much higher in this building than we had previously. In the last building we had racks that went two high, in this building they will be four high. It’s going to really increase storage capacity,” Robbins said. “We’re also adding a lot more cold storage cold and freezer storage which allows us to expand our fresh and healthy food offerings for people in need and also accept large scale perishable food donations which has always been an issue since we just really didn’t have the room.”
Robbins expressed her gratitude to the Humboldt County community for its support during such trying times.
“It’s a really hard time for a lot of people in our community, making sure that people can still access foods that they need during a hard time is really important,” Robbins said.
Eureka City Councilmember Leslie Castellano praised Food for People for its ability to quickly adapt to challenging circumstances.
“Food for People does essential work in Eureka and beyond and I am proud that their primary site is located in Eureka,” Castellano said. “They have done an incredible job of adapting to an extremely challenging year. It has been a significant effort to meet the needs of a community in the midst of a pandemic while also navigating the additional challenge of having to suddenly move out of their building. I know that the City of Eureka is committed to their future success.”
Kelly Hampton, Humboldt County Department of Health & Human Services Social Services Deputy Branch Director, said Food for People is “a key partner in ensuring food security for our community and getting the word out about the CalFresh program for those needing help.”
“We are so excited about Food for People getting a new location so their important work in our community can continue,” Hampton added.
More information can be found at foodforpeople.org.