Ozarks Food Harvest receives grant for new warehouse

Troy, Mich.-based The Kresge Foundation, a national organization that seeks out nonprofit groups, made the gift, Ozarks Food Harvest announced Tuesday.

The gift goes toward the nonprofit’s “Compassion in Action” capital campaign to build a $4.1 million distribution warehouse in north Springfield. The remaining balance on the project is now down to $1,305,798, and officials hope to finish raising funds by Nov. 1, 2008.

Ozarks Food Harvest cites a major need for additional food storage space, noting the more than a quarter million pounds of food the organization had to turn down in 2005.

“Ozarks Food Harvest has reached the point where the current facility is preventing the food bank from accepting all donations it could be receiving,” said Jim Lewis, past board member and member of the campaign leadership committee, in a news release. “The new building not only gives us more space to accept and distribute more food, but also the right kind of space, specifically refrigerated space.”

The new distribution center will allow the food bank to double its current distribution of food to the needy working poor, children and elderly in the Ozarks, according to the release. The food bank has seen a 44 percent increase in food requests in the last four years.