Gathered on a vacant lot at North 10th Street Monday morning, only a short distance from Temple University’s campus, the First Lady Frances Wolf, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney, City Council President Darrell Clarke, Congressman Dwight Evans, Congressman Brendan Boyle, community members and anti-hunger advocates came together to celebrate the much anticipated ground breaking of the Philabundance’s newest facility.
“This is beyond a dream come true...It’s unbelievable.” said Candace Matthews-Bass, deputy director of workforce and community development with Philabundance. “It doesn’t just impact the individual, it’s impacting the families they come from, and eventually the community that surrounds those families.”
Philabundance provides food to approximately 90,000 people per week across nine counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The new facility will allow the organization to have an even greater impact through the use of its multipurpose spaces and state-of-the-art training kitchen. The kitchen will be capable of supporting 200 students a year, twice as many as it does now. It will also include a preparation kitchen, operational offices and gathering spaces that will promote involvement and awareness within the community. The $8 million project is set to open during the early part of 2020. It will allow the organization to quadruple the number of healthy meals prepared for its most vulnerable neighbors and expand collaboration across social, cultural and economic lines.
For full press release, click here.
