Page 16 - BusinessWest January 22, 2024

The new Chicopee headquarters doubles the size of the former Hatfield site.
“That will make it a greener building, so there are efficiencies to be gained,” Morehouse said. “We expect that building to be near- carbon-neutral and generate most of the electricity that we need.”
The investment in the relocation project and its capital cam- paign is already bringing palpable returns. In just the first three months since moving in, the Food Bank has already provided 25% more healthy food than the same period last year — the equivalent of more than a half-million meals. In all, the Food Bank provides a little more than 1 million pounds of food every month, or the equiv- alent of 850,000 meals.
known?”
Who, indeed. When
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Continued on page 18
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“The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts’ new, state-of-the- art facility will allow their dedi- cated team to provide greater access to healthy, nutritious foods to thousands more of our neigh- bors in need and expand service routes to partners throughout
the area,” U.S. Rep. Jim McGov- ern said at the grand opening. “I’m proud of the Food Bank’s
40 years of history serving our community and their continued leadership on the national stage in our movement to end hunger now.”
An Overstuffed Facility
The Food Bank, which traces its history back to 1979, expand- ed its facility in Hatfield just
before the Great Recession, and then maxed it out as food-insecu- rity needs exploded during the ensuing years of difficult economic conditions.
“We had no available space, and we continued to see heightened demand, and that left no space at all for continued growth,” More- house said, noting that the Food Bank has grown its operations by about 6% annually between 2006 and last year.
“We knew around 2016 that it was unsustainable, that we would need a larger space in order to continue to accommodate more food and to address increasing food insecurity whenever there was another adverse impact on the economy, whether it be a recession or ... who would have
“The more we thought about moving to Hampden County, the more we realized that was what we needed to do.”
Stories 75 Years In The Making.
One of the highlights of our 75th year in business was having MBK clients and partners share some great stories of how we’ve come so far and where we plan to go from here.
Scan to watch.
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