The lyrics of “Enough For Everyone,” performed with heartfelt spirit by Tom Chapin and Michael Mark on April 19 in Elmsford, couldn”™t have been more fitting.
“There is food for enough to share, up to us to get it there, there”™s enough for everyone, in our green and growing home.”
The local musicians ”“Â Chapin a multiple Grammy Award winner and Mark a multiple Grammy nominee ”“Â were on hand to offer their support as Food Bank for Westchester held the official grand opening and ribbon-cutting for its cavernous new warehouse on Clearbrook Road.
And the facility is already helping meet the need of an estimated 200,000 Westchester residents who are hungry or at risk of hunger.
The organization was incorporated in 1988 as Food-PATCH (People Allied To Combat Hunger).
Past president Joseph Masterson, chief sales and marketing officer for Diversified Investment Advisors in Harrison, spoke about the organization”™s humble start, referring to it as a “bootstrap operation. When we started, we didn”™t have a warehouse,” he said.
But by 1990, the organization had moved out of garages and into its first commercial facility, a 10,000-square-foot space in Hawthorne that saw it distribute 1.6 million pounds of food to 108 member programs. It moved to Millwood in 1993 and by 2011, that 15,000-square-foot facility was exceeding its capacity as it distributed 7 million pounds of food to 227 programs.
Last year saw the firming up of plans to move to the current 36,688-square-foot facility, which will allow the food distribution to grow to a projected 10 million to 17 million pounds.
The $2.2 million project was spearheaded by funds raised through a matching program. Philanthropist Pat Lanza of Eastchester issued the $750,000 Lanza Challenge, which was met and surpassed.
Before the official opening program, Lanza stood looking over the soaring shelves filled with boxes of crackers, vegetables and beverages and within steps of the new refrigeration and freezer systems that will further help the cause.
“I saw this when it was one big empty building,” she said. “It worked out beautifully.”
The official program, attended by several hundred supporters, member organizations, board members, politicians and those in the corporate community, included remarks by executive director Christina Rohatynskyj, as well as comments (and thanks) from representatives from many of the organizations that benefit from the food bank”™s offerings, whether it be groceries to donate to its clients or ingredients for the meals it prepares for distribution to those in need through soup kitchens.
Looking out over the audience, dwarfed by the floor-to-ceiling shelves of supplies, Food Bank board president Rick Rakow of Rakow Commercial Realty Group Inc., in White Plains further captured the spirit of the day.
“It”™s been a long time coming,” he said. “What a transformative moment in the life of this organization ”¦. What we are witnessing today is that butterfly coming out of the cocoon. What a moment.”
