Oregon Food Bank seeks funds to expand

The organization hopes to build a new 36,000-square-foot facility in Beaverton

By Steve Clark

The Times, Jul 30, 2009, Updated Oct 30, 2009

The Oregon Food Bank has launched a major $8.5 million fundraising campaign to triple its facilities to store, process and distribute food to a rapidly growing population of needy residents in Washington County.

The expansion cannot come soon enough, Rachel Bristol, the chief executive officer of the Oregon Food Bank, told business and community leaders July 23 at a kick-off event for the fundraising campaign that was hosted by Intel and the Westside Economic Alliance.

The leaders gathered in a vacant 36,000-square-foot warehouse in Beaverton that, when remodeled, will replace a much smaller facility in Hillsboro that offers limited warehouse space, outside freezers and food-pick-up areas and little room for volunteers to prepare food supplies for the needy.

“Our current facility in Washington County has been stretched beyond its capacity,” said Bristol.

But the real problem, she said, is not space, but mounting hunger in Washington County and Northwest Oregon.

“Hunger can’t wait for a better economy,” Bristol said, calling on businesses and local residents to financially support the fundraising effort for the new food distribution center. “Oregon Food Bank West can’t wait for a better economy. We have to do this now.”

Bristol said since 2000, Washington County’s population has grown 14 percent, yet the number of local residents living below the federal poverty line has increased by 38 percent. She said one in nine local residents live below the poverty line and of that total, 40 percent are children. Meanwhile, she said, the requests for food assistance in Washington County grew by 28 percent in the past year – or twice the rate of growth for food assistance experienced elsewhere in Oregon.

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