Bigger, Better Building

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Story Published: Sep 17, 2009 at 6:43 PM PDT

By Sade Malloy

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BENTON CITY -- They're feeding the masses in brand new digs. The Benton City Food Bank says it couldn't have happened at a better time. The bad economy and bad job market makes for a larger group of people in need.

The Benton City Food Bank has a brand new building.

"It was more humiliating for them because they were standing on the main street and everybody was driving by seeing who was at the food bank," says Judy Denney, Benton City Food Bank.

The old food bank was in a rundown building with no seating and bathrooms that barely worked. But after a few years of planning and more than $350,000 in grants they moved into a new space four times the size of their old one.

"There's a lot of hungry families out there and it's not getting better it's getting worse," says Jason Zimmerman, Benton City Food Bank.

The food bank is open once a week and helps more than 100 families.
More and more people are looking for food so demand and the need for space is high.

"This worked out great for us, this really helped us out when we were in our time of need," says Mark Dailey, using food bank.

Food bank volunteers say they're here to help those in need no questions asked. It's an honorable statement but it got us wondering why not move to a more populated area, where you'd be able to help more people?

The food bank says these people in smaller communities are the ones who need the most help.

"Benton City always has been dubbed as low income people, a lot of people to start with don't have transportation," says Denney.

So when times are tough and the crowds are somewhat overwhelming,
a bigger building is not a request but a necessity.

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