SALISBURY — Our Neighbors’ Table officials recently spoke about what missing their year-end fundraising goal of $6 million will mean for the charity as they work to secure the last $2 million needed to fully fund its new Seacoast Regional Food Hub by the end of March.
The nonprofit is in the midst of a $7.8 million capital campaign for the Salisbury food hub so it can operate the Bridge Road facility debt free.
ONT first opened the 24,000-square-foot food market and storage facility roughly four months ago. It includes 7,000-square-feet of dry storage, as well as 3,000-square-feet of cold storage. While the hub is still a work in progress, over a million pounds of food have passed through the building so far, with most of it coming from the Greater Boston Food Bank.
“We don’t want to go backwards,” ONT Executive Director Lyndsey Haight said.
Haight said they came “very close” to achieving their 2024 goal of $6 million.
“We got to $5.8 million, which is nothing to sneeze at, and we are incredibly grateful for everyone who heard the call and were inspired to invest,” Haight said.
Coming up short means that they will have to make decisions with their already limited funds.
“Our Neighbors’ Table is pretty lean, and we’ve kept this campaign pretty lean, so we rely on our volunteer committee and we rely on ONT’s core staff,” Haight said.
The number one focus is to keep level services, which she said they will be able to do.
“Our core priority is protecting every way that we serve food insecure individuals and households directly,” Haight said.
As a result, the final phase of the food hub, which ONT hoped to have completed by the first quarter of 2025, may now be delayed as they must wait on rolling out new software, bringing in new hires, expanding truck operations and more.
“So it doesn’t mean we’re not gonna do it, but it means we have to look at when we’ll be able to roll that out,” Haight said.
With the campaign to fund the hub set to go until the end of March, communications director Will Courtney stressed that the ultimate goal of $7.8 million is what really matters.
“That means we don’t have to carry the mortgage here. That means we operate debt free,” Courtney said.
Haight stressed they will be asking folks to dig deep to help them finish out this campaign.
“They can all still go to fillemup.org. And whether they’re making a one-time gift, whether they want to spread it out monthly, just $50 a month over three years, it’s automated so you don’t have to think about it,” Haight said.
Matt Petry covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News of Newburyport. Email him at: mpetry@northofboston.com.