A $3.5 million expansion is underway at the Tarrant Area Food Bank in Fort Worth, aimed at bringing more help to more people across Tarrant County.<\/p>\n
The new project will expand the food bank\u2019s services beyond groceries, adding job training, children\u2019s clothing, legal services, affordable childcare, a diaper bank, education classes and healthcare \u2014 all under one roof.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m here because I need some help,\u201d said Victoria Rocha, who lives in Fort Worth and said she never expected to find herself at the food bank. \u201cI have an accident, I don\u2019t have … support, you know.”<\/p>\n
About a month ago, the food bank opened a market inside its administration building, offering neighbors another way to access food. <\/p>\n
Julie Butner, president of the Tarrant Area Food Bank, said the organization is already seeing more people come directly to the campus for assistance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are already seeing neighbors come to us … looking for food from the food bank rather than just our 500 partner agencies out in the community,\u201d Butner said.<\/p>\n
Historically, the campus has primarily been used for food staging, volunteers and administrative operations. But Butner said needs in the surrounding area have shifted in recent years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis corridor of the city is very quickly changing,\u201d Butner said.<\/p>\n
What was once largely a warehouse district now includes housing, retail and restaurants. Butner said improved access, including a bridge crossing the Trinity River, has also made the campus easier to reach.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow with the bridge that crosses the Trinity River, we are far more accessible today than we were, say, five years ago,\u201d Butner said.<\/p>\n
The $3.5 million project will renovate an agricultural building on campus to create a larger market and space for expanded services. Butner said the changes are based on feedback from the people the food bank serves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a holistic approach to meet neighbors where they are and to support them with more than food so that they can get out of the crisis and the predicament that they\u2019re currently in,\u201d Butner said.<\/p>\n
Rocha said she supports the expansion.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s amazing,\u201d Rocha said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A $3.5 million expansion is underway at the Tarrant Area Food Bank in Fort Worth, aimed at bringing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160719,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[116,118,117,17910],"class_list":["post-160718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth","tag-fort-worth-headlines","tag-fort-worth-news","tag-tarrant-area-food-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160718"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160718\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}