New Shared Cold-Storage Facility Opens in East County to Combat Food Waste and Expand Hunger Relief

On Friday, December 5, Montgomery County celebrated a significant achievement in the fight against food insecurity with the ribbon-cutting of the East County Cold Storage facility in Silver Spring. The event brought together more than 40 attendees, including individual and corporate donors, nonprofit leaders, heads of key government departments, and elected officials: County Executive Marc Elrich, Council President Natali Fani-Gonzalez, Councilmember Will Jawando, Councilmember Kristin Mink, Councilmember Kate Stewart, and State Delegate Lorig Charkoudian.

Spearheaded by Kingdom Global Community Development Corporation and Rainbow CDC, this new facility addresses a longstanding challenge for food access providers: insufficient refrigeration and freezer space. By creating shared storage capacity, the resource will help partners reduce food waste, store more nutritious perishable items, and respond more effectively to community needs.

“Our challenge hasn't been sourcing food. Our challenge has been storing it,” said Rev. Kendra Smith of Kingdom Global Community Development Corporation. “This shared facility means we can rescue more food that would otherwise go to waste and get it to families who need it.”

This critical infrastructure investment was made possible by the ingenuity of these local nonprofits combined with collaborative partnerships with local government leaders, plus seed funding from the Food for Montgomery Fund at the Greater Washington Community Foundation.  A public-private partnership created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Food for Montgomery made over $2.6 million in grants for emergency food distributions, equipment purchases, and infrastructure investments to create a more equitable and resilient food security system, such as this new cold-storage resource.

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Source: Greater Washington Community Foundation