Santa Barbara County nonprofit celebrates funding for its Sharehouse
Erik Talkin, the CEO of the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, gives U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, a tour of the new Sharehouse building in Goleta.
The Foodbank of Santa Barbara County has reached its $20 million fundraising goal to purchase and outfit its new Sharehouse in Goleta.
Of the $20 million, $1.5 million came from federal funding procured by U.S. Rep. Carbajal, D-Santa Barbara, who advocated for the project and appeared Friday morning at a news conference with Erik Talkin, the Foodbank’s CEO, at the Sharehouse.
“The rest of the funding came from a variety of sources,” Mr. Talkin told the News-Press during an interview. “Mostly from local donors; up to about $15 million came from the Santa Barbara community.”
“The bulk of the remaining funding (not federal funding) came from an assortment of private foundations, other individuals’ contributions and other charitable sources,” Judith Smith-Meyer, the Foodbank’s senior communications manager, told the News-Press.
Noted Mr. Talkin, “It has been eight long years since we started looking to secure this and begin the building work. It is difficult to find usable property in Santa Barbara that doesn’t cost millions. We were lucky to find a place that was reasonably priced.”
The Sharehouse is intended to enable the Foodbank to better address food insecurity countywide and ensure that all county residents (and anyone stranded here in case a disaster closes Highway 101 and State Route 154) will have food during a disaster.
“It serves the entire county, but is situated in the South County. A major benefit of the increased capacity is in case of disaster,” said Ms. Smith-Meyer. “In cases where the South County is cut off from the North County, when we are cut off from our usual food sources, we will have ample food ready. We will have one million pounds of food available in the warehouse at all times for disaster response.
“At any given time, we could have 100,000 people stranded here who don’t live here, between tourism and the employment force.”
Mr. Talkin also stressed the Sharehouse will benefit the entire county. “It will enable a lot more food to be stored and the ability to bring more food into the county. The facility will primarily serve Goleta, Santa Barbara and Carpinteria, but it will benefit the entire county.”
Ms. Smith-Meyer discussed details.
“The Sharehouse allows the Foodbank to increase capacity in food storage, nutrition education and disaster response,” she said,
“We have been working for 30 years out of a converted fire station on Hollister, which is much smaller, and food is trucked from Santa Maria every day of the work week,” said Ms. Smith-Meyer. “This allows Santa Maria to serve the North County, while allowing this warehouse to focus on the South County.”
“The increased capacity is huge,” Ms. Smith-Meyer said. “We currently turn away 32,000 pounds of fresh food and produce every single week donated by the L.A. Wholesale Produce Market. That 32,000 pounds is out of 80,000 pounds we turn away each week.”
According to the Foodbank, the facility’s new freezer/cooler space will increase its cold storage in South County tenfold.
Mr. Talkin talked about the Sharehouse’s educational programs.
“We have our new nutrition promotion center inside the admin building, on the Sharehouse campus,” he said. “This allows us to do food literacy training for children, families and groups. You need to educate people to simply use the good, fresh produce available in the county.
“We will also be able to do a lot more disaster training,” Mr. Talkin said. “We can use the facility to increase that training. By having more food available, we will be able to help a lot more agencies and people.”
Friday’s news event with Rep. Carbajal included comments by the congressman and Mr. Talkin, who led the congressman and media on a tour of the facility. Rep. Carbajal presented a giant check representing the $1.5 million grant to Mr. Talkin.
“It went well,” Mr. Talkin told the News-Press. “There was a lot of interest, and it is great to have some good news coming out of the federal government in terms of support for a local project like this.”
Rep. Carbajal said he received a request last spring from the Foodbank to help the nonprofit secure federal funding for the Sharehouse.
“And I immediately knew how important this would be — because before I was a member of Congress, I worked with nonprofits in this area to tackle one of our region’s most central issues: hunger,” he said. “One in six children from Santa Barbara county is food insecure — and that’s why organizations like the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County are so critical. They help families across our region get the food on the table that they need.”
Ms. Smith-Meyer expressed the Foodbank’s gratitude to Rep. Carbajal and noted that the federal funding is more than 5% of the total funds raised.
And Mr. Talkin said he was grateful to the community for its support in establishing the Sharehouse.
“It will be an asset to the community for decades to come, and we really couldn’t have done it without the local community giving what they could,” said Mr. Talkin.
Added Ms. Smith-Meyer, “We are excited to invite the community to join us in the fall. It’s a long-term investment, and we are excited to get started.”
email: kzehnder@newspress.com
FYI
For more about the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, go to foodbanksbc.org.
