Second Harvest Reaps Rewards With New Warehouse

Under gray skies, Second Harvest Food Bank kicked off its bright future Friday.

The food bank unveiled its new 36,000-square-foot warehouse on Ohlone Parkway in Watsonville, a facility that will help the countywide program serve 9,000 more people a month.

The warehouse is part of a revamped headquarters for Second Harvest, which has been at the same address for 20 years. The facility also includes the Solari Nutrition Education Center, where staff teach community members how to cook healthy foods.

"This is a community facility and that's what we're so excited about," said Willy Elliot-McCrea, CEO of Second Harvest.

A $5 million capital campaign funded the five-year expansion project.

Second Harvest, which started as the Food for Children program in 1972, expects to distribute 7.3 million pounds of food this year via 200 food banks in Santa Cruz and North Monterey counties.

Friday, Second Harvest opened its doors for donors, community members and elected officials to tour the facility—which now can accept four-times more fresh food thanks to a larger freezer, has pallet racks that are accessible by forklift and features a new truck dock—and enjoy a healthy lunch.

Now the food bank can store 1.6 million pounds of food at one time.

Michael Watkins, Superintendent of the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, told the crowd more than 20,000 Santa Cruz County students qualify for free or reduced school lunches. The fresh produce and nonperishable foods the food bank provides helps out many of those kids.

"The Second Harvest Food Bank has been a safety net for families," Watkins said.

The food bank distributes food through the Passion For Produce program at 14 sites, assists 54,000 people a month and has a hotline that fields 500 calls from people looking for an emergency food source every month.

"The work we do is huge," said Joel Campos, the senior manager of outreach and education at Second Harvest.