DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa. — A local organization has broken ground on a new warehouse intended to increase food distribution for local children in need.
Based in Hershey, Cocoa Packs provides meals for children in need over the summer and when kids do not have access to school lunches. The organization offers packs with a variety of nutritious breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack items to children on the days that they have no access to subsidized food offerings. Cocoa Packs currently serves 1,300 kids in Central Pennsylvania.
The demand for this service has increased drastically over the past 6-and-a-half years, leading the organization to break ground on a new 20,000 square foot distribution facility in Derry Township on June 30.
"One of the things that’s really beautiful is that the crowd you saw here today, it’s really something we get to experience day in and day out," Lindsay Drew, director of marketing for Cocoa Packs said. "It’s really humbling and makes me really proud to be part of this community."
The new facility will soon allow Cocoa Packs to distribute food to children multiple days a week and maximize the efficiency of the thousands of volunteer groups that serve the organization. It is also large enough to house all of their operations under one roof. Up until acquiring this new space, Cocoa Packs was operating out of seven different locations.
Construction on the new building was funded by their capital campaign, as well as donations from community partners.