Bank of America grants $250,000 to expand Harry Chapin Food Bank capacity

A $250,000 grant package from Bank of America is buying more than short-term operating relief for Harry Chapin Food Bank. The bigger check, $200,000, is helping fund a new Fort Myers Hunger Action Center built to push the food bank’s annual distribution capacity from 45 million pounds to 80 million pounds, while a separate $50,000 grant is aimed at its Care and Share Senior Feeding Program.

The center sits inside Harry Chapin Food Bank’s $30 million Feeding the Future capital campaign and is designed as an operational reset, not just extra warehouse space. At 110,175 square feet, the new building is meant to add more warehouse room, better cold storage and improved distribution areas so the nonprofit can handle more fresh food from local farmers. It is also expected to help staff identify and assist neighbors earlier in the process, while adding a pantry-style shopping experience that the current warehouse model does not provide.

The project is already underway. Harry Chapin Food Bank publicly announced and broke ground on the Hunger Action Center on November 19, 2025, calling it the largest project in its 42-year history. That scale tracks with the food bank’s footprint: its 2025 Impact Report said it distributed 38.7 million pounds of food and served nearly 300,000 neighbors per month across Charlotte, Collier, Glades, Hendry and Lee counties. Its 2024 community report put distribution at 39.5 million pounds, equal to 32 million meals, across the same five-county region.

The senior feeding money goes to a program with a narrow focus and a wide need. Harry Chapin Food Bank says the Care and Share Senior Feeding Program was launched six years ago and piloted in 2017 to support Florida’s participation in a USDA senior hunger initiative. The nonprofit says one in 12 seniors in Southwest Florida struggles with food insecurity. Earlier reporting said the program reached more than 2,200 low-income seniors in Collier, Lee and Charlotte counties with monthly meal kits.

For food-recovery groups that live and die by route efficiency, pantry partnerships and storage constraints, the lesson is plain: targeted grant money can change the shape of the work for years. Operating dollars help a chapter keep moving. Capital dollars like these can determine what it can move at all, and how much of it reaches seniors first.