Project will double size of Second Harvest Food Bank

Second Harvest Food Bank of Metrolina broke ground Monday on an $11.5 million expansion that will double the size of its warehouse and headquarters on Spratt Street.

“I’ve been here a decade and in that amount of time we’ve gone from distributing 7 million pounds (of food) a year to close to 50 million this year,” said Kay Carter, CEO of the food bank. “We finally got to the point where we couldn’t do anything else but expand.”

Big donors include Food Lion, which gave $1.5 million for the building naming rights and Harris Teeter is providing $500,000 donation to the complete a volunteer center.

Former Family Dollar CEO Howard Levine gave $1 million to the cause in 2015 and he surprised the food bank Monday by announcing an additional $500,000 gift in the form of a challenge match. Levine is calling on organizations and individuals to match the $500,000 so the food bank raise the final $1 million needed for the campaign.

This story was originally published April 25, 2016 at 4:20 PM with the headline "Project will double size of Second Harvest Food Bank."