This story was first published at Bucket List Community Cafe.
AURORA | Patricia Garland has been picking up food from Food Bank of the Rockies on behalf of Restoration Outreach Programs, a partner organization, since 2008. But when she arrived at the nonprofit’s new distribution center in Aurora earlier this month, she noticed something was different.
“Here it doesn’t seem like we really have to wait,” Garland said. “I think it’s because it’s spread out more than at the other place. You’re not so crowded.”
On Feb. 5, Food Bank of the Rockies opened a new 270,000-square-foot distribution center at 20600 E. 38th Ave., replacing two smaller facilities the organization had outgrown. Steve Kullberg, chief of staff at Food Bank of the Rockies, said the main issue was a lack of space.
“We had inadequate space in just about every aspect, so it made our work less effective,” Kullberg said. “The ability to store [food], handle it and organize it has been huge.”
The new purpose-built space has allowed Food Bank of the Rockies to increase efficiency across the board. The organization can now transfer packages of food more quickly to partner agencies at its loading docks. Expanded storage and refrigerated capacity also allow the nonprofit to store more food, accept more donations and accommodate more volunteers, all of which come at a time when food insecurity in the region has reached its highest level in over a decade.
“It’s a combination of inflation, higher cost of living that’s outpacing wages, as well as the increasing cost of food,” said Joanna Wise, Food Bank of the Rockies’ press relations manager. “A lot of people are having to make some of those tough decisions between, do I pay for groceries, or do I pay my utility bill?”
The Food Bank of the Rockies’ leadership claims that the new facility allows them to serve more people because it has 67% more storage capacity, twice as much refrigerated space and three times as many volunteers, all while saving an estimated $500,000 per year.
According to Kullberg, one of the most significant improvements is the new distribution center’s ability to facilitate more effective staging. Staging is the process of giving, receiving and organizing packages of food at loading docks. When trucks would deliver food to the old facilities, a lack of staging space created efficiency issues.
“We had such inadequate staging that we were having to spend most of our time rearranging things at the dock,” Kullberg said. “When a truck came in, we’d have to stop, clear all the space, kind of try to get that all received and organized and put away, and by then, another truck would already be there, and so it was just a constant game of Tetris.”
The new staging area includes a 60-foot zone that gives workers in forklifts adequate space to move large packages in and out of loading docks. There are more than 30 doors where small hunger relief partner organizations park to pick up boxes of food.
“It means our drivers, instead of spending their time maneuvering on the dock, are spending their time doing more deliveries,” Kullberg said, “which is what our partners need, and what I think our neighbors need in the community.”
Michael McReavy works for Fellowship Covenant Church, another partner of Food Bank of the Rockies. He recalls being at one of the old facilities, where people lined up to wait for a semi-truck to exit the parking lot.
“It’s been good in that regard as far as traffic,” McReavy said. “There is a lot less competition to be able to get in and out with a delivery or pickup.”
Kullberg said another major improvement is increased refrigerated space, which can now hold multiple truckloads of fresh food. Kullberg explained that the old facilities lacked sufficient refrigerated space, causing food package handling to be slow.
“We’d get a truckload of something,” Kullberg said. “It would then take up almost all our space, so that everything else we’re doing is kind of working around that.”
With enough space for multiple truckloads, workers can easily maneuver around refrigerated food without it being in the way of their operations. Fresh food can then be stored for the appropriate time, rather than being removed to make room for new truckloads.
The new distribution center also includes three rooms dedicated to volunteer work. One room is designated for repacking food from large boxes into family-sized containers in a sanitary way. The old facilities had only one volunteer room, where staff would need to set up and break down different operations throughout the day. Having a designated repacking room allows Food Bank of the Rockies to expand the types of foods it can repackage.
“I’m excited about frozen vegetables,” Kullberg said. “So a pallet-sized container of cauliflower or broccoli or something that we can then break down into family-sized portions. That’s something we couldn’t do at all.”
Kim and Phil Willett have been volunteering with the Food Bank of the Rockies for nine years. Kim explained that at the previous facility, volunteers would adapt one room to meet various needs, which required their own time and labor.
“If we had to change what we were doing, like, we got one project done in the old space, and we wanted to switch to a different project,” Kim said, “we had to take down the first project to set up the second project. Now we have two rooms that we can specifically do that in.”
Phil said volunteers can now complete separate tasks simultaneously without taking time to reconfigure workspaces.
“It’s time effective,” Phil said. “It’s not wasting the time of the volunteers.”
At the old distribution center, Kullberg said Food Bank of the Rockies was often forced to turn away donations that it couldn’t store or rush to find partner organizations to accept excess food.
“Almost always juggling.” Kullberg said. “People working the phones to say, “Hey, can you take a few extra pallets of this thing?””
The additional space in the new facility enables the organization to distribute food based on priority rather than urgency, which was previously limited by storage. Smaller partner organizations often have limited storage capacity of their own, making it essential for the food bank to hold supplies until they are ready for pickup.
As food insecurity climbs across the region, that added storage capacity gives Food Bank of the Rockies more room to respond to growing need without rushing supplies out before partners are ready to receive them. For Food Bank of the Rockies employees and partner organizations, the new distribution center is a step toward meeting the community’s growing needs.
“This center will allow us to really be able to grow into those possibilities,” Wise said, “and really be able to meet the needs, not just for years to come, but for generations.”
This story was made available via the Colorado News Collaborative. Learn more at https://www.google.com/url?q=https://colabnews.co&source=gmail-imap&ust=1772741887000000&usg=AOvVaw0tmhlaLMROFNgpPJB0ln9M