KENTWOOD, Mich. (WOOD) — Leaders celebrated the opening of the new Feeding America West Michigan building with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Wednesday.
The $19.6 million facility, located on Shaffer Avenue in Kentwood, will allow the nonprofit to store and distribute more food.
“That’s what this building represents for us,” Feeding America West Michigan CEO Ken Estelle said. “It allows us to expand some really critical food distribution and food feeding programs.”
Organizers say they’ve seen higher demand in recent years, particularly with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’ve seen the need in our communities that we serve continue to rise, and we really were very space-constrained in our other facility,” Shay Kovacs, the programs manager for Feeding America West Michigan, explained. “We knew that we could do more and we could meet the needs of our new community better if we had more space. And that’s really how it started.”
The nonprofit plans to have the new site operating in January.
