Countywide : Food Bank Receives $950,000 U. S. Grant

More than two years after it was promised, Ventura County’s largest food bank received a $950,000 federal grant Thursday.

Food Share Inc. will use the money to buy the Oxnard warehouse and adjoining parking lot that it now rents, said Jewel Pedi, the nonprofit agency’s executive director. “It took awhile, but we’re not complaining. We learned that you just have to wait in line.”

The food bank, founded in 1978, feeds about 93,000 people a month through soup kitchens and homeless shelters, Pedi said. In addition to paying for the building and lot, the grant will be used to buy two trucks, allowing the agency to expand its food delivery program.

Under the bill, more than $60 million was granted to 150 organizations in the fiscal year that ended in September, a HUD spokesman said.

The lag between the time the bill was signed and the grant was received is customary, he said. “It’s a fairly congested process. I wouldn’t say we move slowly. We move deliberately.”