Food Bank Of Eastern Oklahoma Opens New Center To Support Community Feeding Partners

The Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma recently opened a center to help its feeding partners pick out unique foods and other items they can distribute to their community.

The new shopping agency area, which opened just a couple months ago, replaced an old space located in the food bank's warehouse. It will be a place dedicated to the more than 600 feeding partners that collaborate with the food bank.

These partners are able to pick up the food they need and take it back to their pantries to distribute to people in need.

The shopping center acts as a mini supermarket with items like fresh produce, canned and baked goods, and spices all sitting on shelves for feeding partners to pick out.

Joy Ferrin, the food bank's VP of community impact, said the new space also allows the food bank to serve more feeding partners safely.

"It’s more space that allows us to display more product. And so it’s just a really good opportunity for our partners to come in and get additional product and really access the product that needs to turn around in a short period of time if it has a short shelf life," Ferrin said.

Ferrin also said the food bank's feeding partners have seen the need for food go up, and this shopping agency area helps the feeding partners keep their communities fed.

"Our partners have just been communicating with us more than anything these last couple months that the need is increasing. They're seeing more people coming through. They're seeing new people coming through. And so as the need increases, we’re just continually trying to stock the shelves, keep the warehouse full and just get more food out to meet that need," Ferrin said.

While some of the food items do require a fee, other items like produce are at no cost to the feeding partners. Ferrin said this gives the feeding partners a cheaper option to help keep their pantries full.