A New Food Bank Facility for Wilmington

The nCino Hunger Solution Center

The Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina at Wilmington is excited to be moving forward with our new facility, the nCino Hunger Solution Center at 1000 Greenfield Street in Wilmington. The new construction facility will provide the infrastructure and space to reach more of our neighbors facing food insecurity in the Cape Fear region and allow the Food Bank to operate additional programs to address hunger at its root causes.

The Food Bank at Wilmington serves four counties: Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover, and Pender. Last year the Food Bank at Wilmington distributed more than 10 million meals, but we must do more to meet the growing need. Insufficient space has been the largest single obstacle to feeding more of our hungry neighbors. May 1st will be our first day of operation at the new Wilmington location.

Thank you to all of our supporters for helping make this new community food bank possible.

The 1314 Marstellar Street location will be closed the week of April 24th-28th.

 
 

Thank you to the generous partners who have already invested in this vision through strategic gifts:

Empower

Bruce Barclay Cameron Foundation
Dan Cameron Family Foundation
Food Lion Feeds
nCino
New Hanover County
State of North Carolina

Build

Joe & Leslie Antos
Bank of America
Cape Fear Memorial Foundation
City of Wilmington
Dan Saklad and the Daniel A. and Sheila M. Saklad Foundation
Liberty Healthcare
Martin Marietta
Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center
Smithfield Foods
Shelayne and Frank Sutton
The Cannon Foundation
Derek & Louise Winstanly

Nourish 

Bob & Ann
Carlstedt Family Fund
David Tepper Charitable Foundation
Richard “Dyck” DeWid and H. Lynda Murray
Edward and Lee Graham Family Foundation
Holt Oil Company
House of Raeford Farms
Donna Howard
International Paper Foundation
Landfall Foundation
Steve & Anne Lloyd
David & Mary Lucht
Hugh MacRae
Natalyn & Martin Price
Publix Supermarket Charities
Matt & Alison Rogers
Jeff & Jan Turpin
Wells Fargo Foundation
William C. Ethridge Foundation
York Properties

.

Inspire 

Anonymous Donor
Leslie & Margaret Boney
Coldwell Banker Commercial Sun Coast Partners
Coldwell Banker Sea Coast Advantage
Greg & Stephanie Fountain
Harry & Dona Kaplan
David & Jennifer Kochman
Landfall Foundation
Dana & Russ Lange
Troy Leshko
LWH Foundation
Jon & Leslie Mize
Pender County
Dennis & Rosemary Pittman
Darlene & Grayson Powell
Charles & Sue Recorr
Anne & Robert Stokley
Sunrise Broadcasting
WECT-TV
Wilmington Business Journal

Donors listed above have pledged or given $10,000 or more in support of this project. Thank you to the many other donors who have also given generously.

Food Bank at Wilmington Regional Council

Joe Antos, Philip Chryst, Kimberly Crabbe, Ed Graham, Jill Harrington, Jimmy Jones, Darlene Powell, Matt Rogers (chair), Chase Shelton

Nourish. Build. Empower. Executive Campaign Cabinet

Frances Weller, WECT (Honorary Chair); Derek Cohen, Bank of America (Co-Chair); Matt Rogers, Aramark (Co-Chair); Clifford Barnett, Warner Temple AME Zion Church & City of Wilmington; Philip Brown, Novant Health; Dana Lange; and Darlene Powell

Frequently Asked Questions

The Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina is a nonprofit organization that has provided food for people at risk of hunger in 34 counties in central and eastern North Carolina for more than 40 years. We serve a network of more than 900 partner agencies such as soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, and programs for children and adults through warehouses in Wilmington, Durham, Greenville, New Bern, Raleigh, and the Sandhills. Last year, the Food Bank distributed over 138 million pounds of food (over half of which was perishable) and non-food essentials through these agencies. Sadly, hunger remains a serious problem in central and eastern North Carolina. In these counties, nearly 508,430 people struggle to access nutritious and adequate amounts of food necessary for an active and healthy life. We hope you will explore our website if you are interested in learning more.

The new Food Bank at Wilmington will be located at 1000 Greenfield Street, just two blocks from the current location at 1314 Marsteller Street, where it has operated since 1990. The new site is about 5 acres and zoned UMX for Urban Mixed Use.

The new property was purchased in July, 2020. We began construction in March 2022 and the official grand opening will be in early 2023.

The Food Bank will operate regularly from 8:30 AM until 5 PM Monday thru Friday.  We also have periodic evening and Saturday volunteer shifts.

Primary traffic in and out of the Food Bank at Wilmington will be from our volunteers and partner agencies, most of whom drive personal vehicles or small trucks; a few have trailers and some do have box trucks. We receive two large weekly deliveries from the Raleigh Branch and have three trucks of our own, but taken all together, we don’t anticipate truck traffic to interfere with our neighbors.  That is to say, however, that we will be mindful of such impact.

At this time, the Food Bank partners with more than 100 local nonprofit organizations and churches who serve food directly to those in need. Among those in the immediate area surrounding the Food Bank at Wilmington are Good Shepherd Center, Nourish NC, The Acts Movement, and Mt. Olive AME. Visit our Food Finder for address and operating hours of these partners and a complete list and map of places where someone can go to find food, and often many additional services as well.

The current facility is just 12,000 square feet. The new facility will be approximately 35,000 square feet, or 250% larger! This will accommodate:

  • about 4,500 square feet of commercial cooler and freezer space for perishable fresh foods and high-quality proteins, such as meat and dairy items
  • almost 20,000 square feet for dry food storage
  • additional space for office personnel and volunteers
  • more loading docks to ease partner agencies in loading and distribution of food

This expansion will allow the food bank to distribute an additional 3.5 million meals a year, which is a 47% increase over our current capacity.

In addition to distributing more food, long term plans include workforce development opportunities, health education, a community garden, a commercial kitchen for training, and through additional space for freezers and coolers, the ability to get more fresh food to our friends and neighbors.

Quite simply, the current Food Bank facility is out of space. The current location supplies food to New Hanover, Brunswick, Pender, and Columbus counties. With this new building, the Food Bank will add Duplin County to its service area, and allow the Food Bank to operate additional programs to address hunger at its root causes.

Nearly 66,800 food insecure individuals, including working families, seniors on a fixed income, children and teens living at home or working their way through college, depend on the Food Bank at Wilmington for nutritious food daily – and even more so after major disasters.

Despite our best work, and increasing distribution during times of crisis, a meal gap still exists between the need in the greater Wilmington area and the flow of food we can maintain in our current facility.

The new facility will accommodate distribution of an additional 4.2 million pounds of food or 3.5 million meals annually, a 47% increase in overall distribution.

Volunteers are the heart and soul of the Food Bank’s mission. Every day, Food Bank volunteers are making a tangible contribution to our community. Volunteers are vital to ensuring nutritious food reaches our neighbors in need. We could never do this important work alone! If you are interested in volunteering, please visit the volunteer page of our website.

More Information?

If you are interested in learning more, please fill out our contact form below.