Charitable organization, Social service center
Second Harvest Food Bank
What is Second Harvest Food Bank The Second Harvest Food Bank of NW PA is the largest nonprofit food distribution organization in northwest Pennsylvania. Second Harvest, which has 60, 000 square feet of space, solicits, receives, inventories, stores and distributes food and grocery products to 254 member agencies that directly serve people facing hard times in 11 counties. Member agencies include food pantries, soup kitchens, Kids Cafes and shelters as well as such non-emergency agencies as child care centers, drug and alcohol rehabilitation centers and senior centers. The counties served include Cameron, Clarion, Clearfield, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Forest, Jefferson, McKean, Venango and Warren. During 2008, Second Harvest distributed more than 7 million pounds of food to member agencies, which in turn provided food to 52, 000 unduplicated recipients. Second Harvest is part of Feeding America, the country's leading domestic hunger-relief organization. This network offers several benefits to its member food banks, including providing donated food from national manufacturers, facilitating grant applications for funding from a variety of sources, setting standards for food safety and all aspects of operations related to food banks, and providing a forum for food bank directors to help one another in their work of soliciting food and managing food distribution to those in need. Nutritious but unsalable food is donated to Second Harvest from all levels of the food industry retailers, distributors, wholesalers, manufacturers, growers as well as from food drives. The food is nutritious and usable, but due to overproduction, errors in packaging, a short code date or other reasons, it cannot be sold. Second Harvest trucks pick up donated food five days a week from area retailers, wholesalers and food drives.