Food and Friends Breaks Ground on $30 Million Expansion in Northeast D.C.

Food and Friends, a Washington nonprofit that makes more than two million meals a year for people in the region who are fighting serious illnesses, has begun construction on a $30 million addition and renovation at its Northeast D.C. headquarters. Ground was broken Monday.

The 17,000-square-foot expansion is expected to greatly increase the number of people the organization can serve each day. Carrie Stoltzfus, the group's CEO, said demand has outgrown the current space. "The demand has been so high, and so we need more room. And we're really, really excited to be kicking that off," she said. "We're going to be able to more than double what we do."

Today, Food and Friends packages roughly 7,100 meals per day and delivers across the D.C. region, an area about the size of Connecticut. Staff describe the existing building as bursting at the seams, with many rooms doing double duty as food storage.

Most of the new space will be devoted to cooking and storing food. "Most of the expansion space will be for food production and food storage because that's really what drives everything else that we do and why we're all here," Stoltzfus said.

The new building is scheduled for completion in May and will include a state-of-the-art kitchen. The current kitchen will be converted into a chilled food packing room. The project also adds private nutrition counseling rooms for clients who are living with illnesses such as cancer, AIDS and renal failure, among others.

Every client is referred to the program by a healthcare provider. Dietitians and chefs have created 11 meal types designed around specific health needs.

Rebecca Kahn, the organization's director of nutrition services, said the food works as medicine and leads to better health outcomes. "Hospital visits are going down as compared to before getting our services. Clients are saving money on healthcare costs," she told WTOP.

Loris Adams, a volunteer who once received meals from Food and Friends during her treatment for ovarian cancer, said she is thrilled about the expansion. "People like me, people like your neighbors have an opportunity to be fed and nourished, body, soul and spirit, while they're going through really hard and difficult times," she said after the groundbreaking.