Facing Hunger Food Bank expanding to add teaching kitchen

HUNTINGTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - After several years of waiting, Facing Hunger Foodbank is expanding its facility into the building next door. It’s the old Southern States building on 7th Avenue that has been vacant for nearly a decade.

“We’re growing!” said Food Bank CEO Cyndi Kirkhart. Her team has waited for the building next door to be theirs for years. “It’s warehouse space will double us from 26,000 square feet to 52,000.”

The extra space will house a food pantry, more storage and freezers for perishable items and a teaching kitchen.

“Products we get, folks don’t necessarily know how to prepare, how to best maximize that food as a resource, so we’ll have on-site classes where they’ll get all the food we’ll teach about,” Kirkhart said.

Classes in the future kitchen will be customizable to what resources people have available. If you only have a microwave to cook with at home, there will be a class for you. If you can’t make it to a class in person, classes will be streamed online.

“I think folks are going to feel that we care,” Kirkhart said. “That we’re providing human care, not just health care through our partners and through our food resources.”

More space at the food bank means more room to fulfill their mission, making sure everyone in the community has enough to eat.

“I want to see people thrive,” Kirkhart said. “I want the kids we serve to get the education they deserve, and be treated in a way that they take the gifts that they’re born with and make a difference.”

They’ll be working on the space during the next year and hope to have it all finished around the end of 2024.

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