Foundation Stories
Food Bank of the State College Area Inc.
Now in their 27th year of operation, the State College Food Bank was started in 1982 by a small group of parishioners at St. Andrews Episcopal Church. After acquiring non-profit status in 1996, they became officially known as the Food Bank of the State College Area Inc. “Our mission is to provide emergency food to needy families in the State College area and then network with the other food banks in the Centre County region,” says Executive Director Linda Tataliba “Currently we are serving over 200 families a month, which is, in comparison to last year, 10 to 20 more people per month now.”
Their site on 276 W. Hamilton Ave. serves the State College Area School District and Upper Bald Eagle and those parts of Julian with the 692 telephone exchange. They also support seven other food banks as well as the Community Health Center where they keep shelves stocked for the more transient population. In addition to regular donations from organizations and individuals, they also receive funds through the Centre County Community Foundation from people who stipulate that a portion or all of their donation go to the food bank. Last year they also received a grant from the CCCF, in the amount of $1000, to update their PC systems and software, thus increasing their digital capacity.
“Our PC systems were very, very old,” Tataliba explains. “They did not allow us to update certain software, so [the CCCF grant] has made a tremendous difference. With the receipt of that grant we were able to install Microsoft 2007 and the greatest advantage was the capability to be able to network one computer with another in the office, allowing several people to be on the internet at the same time.” The new system also allows the food bank to generate different reports and information, and they now have immediate access to the client data base at all times.
“We share a storage site out at the Nittany Mall with Adult Services and Bob Ott is in charge of that,” Tataliba says. “We donate lots and lots of food and we’ve been able to better track that system, too, through our new PCs and software. We’ve had graduate students that have helped us develop inventory systems and it’s become more affordable because of the support of the CCCF and everyone else in the community that’s interested in what’s happening with us. We are seeing a whole new level of population coming through—folks that never had to use the food bank before. They’ve exhausted their savings and without the many wonderful folks that live in our phenomenal community, we just would not be able to survive. So we appreciate the CCCF for all that they do for us.”
