Two northeast Ohio hunger fighting organizations are joining forces: Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank and Community Harvest of Stark County will merge on Jan. 1st.
The foodbank supplied 500 relief programs with 14,000 tons of canned and non-perishable food in 2015. Community Harvest helped provide 80,000 meals a month of food that restaurants and cafeterias prepared but didn’t use.
They are combining strengths. Community Harvest is growing fast and Executive Director Faith Barbato says it can use operating help from the Foodbank.
“It happened really quickly. And, in the last two years I’ve been mentioning to the board members: ‘You know, we’re growing faster than the resources coming in.”
The regional foodbank can expand its services at little cost by working with Community Harvest’s network. “It’s just a unique solutions-based way to solve hunger without a lot of money.”
The organization’s boards of directors signed off this week on a letter of intent for the merger.
