The Feed Kern Now Campaign

The CAPK Food Bank is currently operating at maximum capacity, jeopardizing our ability to meet the food needs of the most vulnerable and food insecure residents in our community. Expanding the CAPK Food Bank will greatly increase its ability to do more, with the determination and vision to alleviate hunger across communities served. The addition of 40,000 square feet to the existing 20,000 square foot CAPK Food Bank warehouse will more than triple the square footage, providing the following solutions:

Increase in Storage

The CAPK Food Bank tries to accept all food offered to meet the immense food needs in Kern County. With the CAPK Food Bank operating at capacity, additional space is needed to receive and store food donation until they can be distributed through the network of partner distribution sites. An integral part of CAPK’s ability to meet food needs is through private donation, including fruits and vegetables from local growers. To meet the increasing food needs throughout the county, more space is needed to accept even larger quantities of these foods. Once expanded, CAPK’s Food Bank will have the ability to accept more food donations to meet current and expanded needs. After the expansion is complete, CAPK’s Food Bank will be able to add even more partner distribution sites to its list, so more of the City of Bakersfield and underserved and rural communities in Kern County can be fed. The CAPK Food Bank tries to accept all food offered to meet the immense food needs in Kern County. With the CAPK Food Bank operating at capacity, additional space is needed to receive and store food donation until they can be distributed through the network of partner distribution sites. With recent additional partners and food drives such as the Kern County Fair Feed the Need Campaign that resulted in nearly 50,000 pounds of canned goods and over 6,000 pounds of donated frozen meat from the livestock auctions collected in 2018, and other drives and donations that result in tens of thousands of pounds of canned and dry food, storage space is at a premium. CAPK doesn’t have room to run all of their critical programs out of the existing Food Bank warehouse. We currently lease three additional warehouses to meet the needs of our programs. For the essential Food2Door program for seniors, we spend an additional $4,449.00 a month to lease a 6,000 sq. ft. building—located one-half mile away from the main warehouse—to receive, store, and assemble more than 8,000 senior food boxes each month. The separate warehouse arrangements are not efficient operationally and takes valuable resources—money, time, volunteers—to travel back and forth between locations. We’ve incorporated the need to move this outside warehouse storage space into our current plans for expansion.

Emergency and Community-Wide Disasters

Food banks are more than just placeholders for food. In a crisis situation, food banks are often asked to receive emergency supplies and items during community-wide disasters. As seen through past and current emergency situations—wildfires, drought, freezes, economic downturns, earthquakes, and the COVID-19 pandemic—the need to be prepared for emergencies should always be addressed. During these events, the CAPK Food Bank might take in bottled water, baby food, cleaning supplies, hygiene items, pet food and supplies, and personal protective equipment (PPE). The Food Bank needs to have space to receive these critical supplies at a moment’s notice.

Volunteers

CAPK’s Food Bank volunteers are vital to our operations. The Food Bank relies on more than 450 annual volunteers and eighteen full-time staff to complete its operations. Volunteers do everything from sorting food, preparing senior and emergency food boxes, assisting with food distributions, to making phone calls that allow the Food Bank to perform at maximum efficiency. Our volunteers come from all over Kern County. Corporate and other community organizations, schools, and faith-based service organizations regularly contact the CAPK Food Bank to provide volunteer opportunities and service. Our Food Bank also works with several agencies to provide opportunities for local work programs. Some of these programs provide temporary volunteers, but others provide job seekers the potential for future employment and self-improvement. Space limitations at the warehouse regularly decrease our ability to offer volunteer opportunities. Expansion would allow an increase in volunteers, which would in turn support operations and food distributions.

Workflow

The CAPK Food Bank only has one loading dock and limited truck access. The expansion project includes six additional loading docks with easier access from the nearby road. This would allow the operations team to schedule multiple donations and better manage inbound and outbound trucks.

Volunteer Testimonial: Jasmine Martinez, CAPK Food Bank Volunteer Jasmine volunteers at the CAPK Food Bank where she assists with the Food2Door program. She’s a mother to two daughters who can still recall her own experience with food insecurity as a child. “I remember being small and coming to a food bank with my mom, having to go to distributions to look for food—it was hard, but now being able to help a family get food for their next meal, it’s an awesome feeling. I love that I’m able to see the amount of food that goes out to the community. I love that I feel like I’m giving back. It makes me feel great. It’s a good feeling to know there are people out here who need help and I’m able to give a little bit of myself to get them the help they need.” Jasmine’s most rewarding moments are the small personal ones. “Sometimes a client calls in and says, ‘You don’t know me, but I came to the food bank and I just want to say I appreciate the work you do and the food we received.’ Other times clients will come in and give us handmade gifts or homemade food to say thanks. I love that. It’s amazing to me.”

CAPK Food Bank Expansion Plan

The CAPK Food Bank is currently operating out of four different warehouses and outside refrigeration storage units just to keep up with the food insecurity demand in Kern County. We’ve exceeded the capacity of our original 20,000 square foot building and lease three additional warehouses in order to store dry and refrigerated goods, and to provide space for volunteers and staff to pack shipments and boxes. We need more room to store dry goods, space for more inside refrigeration, additional docks for trucks, and more offices for our growing staff. To account for this growth, the CAPK Food Bank has been working to develop plans that will allow us to accommodate our immediate need for growth as well as long-term projected growth. We currently have property for an additional 40,000 square foot expansion to the east of our Feliz Drive location. Our current Food Bank warehouse design allows for an efficient workflow inside the building. As a result, we plan to model the expansion project after the original warehouse layout. Our plans also include adding six additional truck docks for receiving shipments and distributing in the morning and afternoon. Our current warehouse design has one dock space for incoming shipments and a separate dock space for our pantry and commodity site trucks to pick up their orders. Our current plans will also account for an increased flow of traffic on the nearby streets and inside the warehouse property to ensure our deliveries can drop off smoothly and our partner sites can get their orders without internal congestion. The expansion will also add office space for additional Food Bank staff and increase the square footage of the existing restrooms in order to accommodate the growing staff and volunteers. These changes will provide the improvements we need to feed Kern in a more efficient way. The expansion project also incorporates energy efficient elements, such as evaporative coolers, skylights, solar and LED lights which will cut back on the expense of operating the larger facility.

An aerial view of the current CAPK Food Bank warehouse