To meet the growing issue of hunger and expand its distribution capacity over three-fold, the Houston Food Bank (HFB) renovated a neglected, thirty year old, “tilt-up” warehouse. The renovation was completed in October 2011. The 308,000 square-foot facility is the nation’s largest size Feeding America food bank and source of food for hunger relief charities in 18 southeast Texas counties. The Houston Food Bank has been named one of 10 Top-Notch Charities across the nation by Charity Navigator. HFB supports a network of nearly 500 food pantries, soup kitchens, senior centers and other agencies, feeding a total of 137,000 people each week, provides more than 53 million nutritious meals annually.

To support demands, HFB relies on thousands of community volunteers and hundreds of correction department inmates and probationers. HFB also provides critical social services including Serving for Success a collaboration that trains offenders for living wage jobs while they volunteer at the Houston Food Bank. HFB also facilities an emergency food pantry that working families can access in off hours and food stamp services.

Meeting the needs of volunteers, staff and the community was of the utmost importance in the design of the new facility.