Yolo Food Bank
WOODLAND, CALIFORNIA (YOLO COUNTY)
A new fully integrated food bank, tripling the size of their existing obsolete facility to feed a community where 1 in 4 children don’t know where their next meal is coming from.
The Project
Since 1970, Yolo Food Bank has battled hunger, malnutrition and inadequate nutritional education in Yolo County, California. In this designated food desert, nearly 20% live below the Federal poverty line.
Today, the new 36,000 square-foot, solar-powered Yolo Food Bank operates with three-times the warehouse space, four-times the cold storage space, and modern, automated equipment, enabling it to serve approximately 55,000 residents each year – a 100% increase. This represents 25% of the Yolo County population.
With its additional space, the new Yolo Food Bank is working to expand other vital programs, including:
- Nonprofit Nutrition Center – An in-house market, where nearly 70 local food pantries/closets, homeless and domestic violence shelters, senior meal delivery programs, healthcare providers, colleges and universities, migrant centers and more select food to use in their outreach and anti-hunger programs.
- Kids Farmers Market - a weekly after-school program that now serves more than 2,750 students at 21 Yolo County public schools, serving low-income families. Kids are now receiving nutrition education, workshops with local farmers, and physical activity. There is also a produce market specifically for preschool and elementary students.
- Yolo Grown – a partnership with local farms and seed companies to grow produce year-round for Yolo Food Bank using sustainable farming practices. The program is growing from just over 502,000 pounds per year to approximately 1 million pounds per year.
Community Impact
- Created 60 jobs (50% new) with the majority available to low-income individuals.
- Created 45 construction jobs.
- Space for 27,500 (+100%) additional people to be served each year, for an annual total of 55,000 people supported.
- 1,050 (+100%) preschool and elementary students in Yolo’s lowest-income schools receiving fresh produce and nutritional education.
- Increased capacity to supply eight sister food banks with sustainably-grown fresh produce and rice.
- Solar panels resulting in savings of $1,038,680 and 2,202 metric tons of CO2.
- 2MM lbs. of food diverted from landfills annually, resulting in 881 tons of Green House Gas emissions reduced per year.
Financing
- Total Project Costs: $9.9 million
- Total New Markets Allocation Secured: $7.0 million
Project Partners
- Community Vision (formerly the Northern California Community Loan Fund)
- Capital One, N.A.
- Yolo Food Bank and YFB Foundation
