Wichita Falls Food Bank Seeks Funding for Expanded Distribution Center

The Wichita Falls Area Food Bank is asking the region to help pay for a building leaders say would remove a hard ceiling on how much food the nonprofit can move every day. At its April 30 campaign launch, the organization said the new Distribution and Education Center would roughly triple storage capacity, a change it says is needed as it currently meets only about two-thirds of local demand.

The capital campaign, called Nourishing Lives Building Tomorrow, has a $17 million fundraising goal inside an $18.6 million project budget. The food bank said it will put in $1.6 million from a multi-year grant and cash reserves, and that about 75% of the campaign goal has already been raised. The site is planned for 14 acres at Hammon Road and Production Boulevard near the Wichita Falls Business Park.

The numbers behind the pitch are stark. The food bank serves 12 counties across more than 11,000 square miles, and it says only five of those counties have traditional supermarkets. In its service area, 41,750 neighbors are experiencing hunger, including 12,930 children and 28,820 adults and seniors. The organization also says its 12-county footprint has the 15th highest hunger rate among Feeding America food banks.

That geography is part of the operational problem the new building is meant to solve. When a food bank covers that much ground, cooler and freezer space is not just a convenience. It determines how much fresh food can be accepted, how long it can be held safely, and how reliably it can be sent back out through partner pantries and other community organizations. The food bank says the new facility would also add space for educational programming on budget-friendly, health-promoting meals, along with room for emergency and disaster-relief products.

Founded in 1982 by volunteers, the food bank began in a borrowed warehouse serving three counties. It moved to its current site at 1230 Midwestern Parkway in 1983 after the University Kiwanis Club of Wichita Falls sponsored construction, then expanded the facility in 1995, 2000 and 2010 as demand grew to 12 counties. David O’Neil, a Wichita Falls native and Midwestern State University graduate, joined the organization in 2022 and became chief executive in March 2023 after a 39-year banking career.

The campaign is also a reminder that the food bank’s daily work is already operating at regional scale. It says it partners with more than 90 community organizations and food pantries, and its service profile ranges from 3,444,450 meals a year in Feeding America’s local listing to 4.2 million meals annually on its own homepage. For a nonprofit built on volunteers and local logistics, the question is not whether need exists. It is whether the facility can keep up with it.