Island Harvest Food Bank is getting $1.5 million from New York State to renovate its headquarters in Melville, and the money is going into teaching space: a demonstration kitchen, a room for repacking bulk food, an upgraded community room and other improvements. Governor Kathy Hochul announced the award on October 29 as one of six capital grants to Long Island organizations totaling nearly $13 million.

According to the state, the renovation will let the food bank start two new workforce training programs and expand its nutrition education program.

Three times as many trainees

Island Harvest runs a Workforce Skills Development Institute alongside its food distribution work, built on the idea that steady work is one of the most direct answers to hunger. Randi Shubin Dresner, Island Harvest's president and chief executive, said the funding will let the institute serve three times as many people as it does now, and she thanked State Senator Siela Bynoe for securing additional money for the program.

Assemblymember Steve Stern described the institute as a program that connects unemployed and underemployed Long Islanders with training that leads to job placement.

What the training looks like

The current program, as Island Harvest lays it out, is a 10-week course that meets Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at no cost to students, with stipends and support services and a year of coaching after graduation. It prepares people for jobs in warehousing and inventory control with local employers, and students leave with a set of credentials, including forklift and electric pallet jack training, OSHA-10 general industry safety, a supply chain and logistics course, ServSafe food handler training and computer fundamentals.

Students must be 18 or older with a high school diploma or GED. Sessions start in January, April and September.

A demonstration kitchen and a bulk repacking room give the food bank the space to add new tracks on top of that, and to teach cooking and nutrition in the same building where it sorts and ships food.

Where the money is going across the Island

The Melville project was announced alongside five others: $3 million for Long Island Select Healthcare in Central Islip, $3 million for the Cerebral Palsy Association of Nassau County's Roosevelt campus, including reopening its Café Connections, $3 million to rebuild the Deer Park High School pool, $1 million for new radios for the Village of Hempstead Volunteer Fire Department, and $1 million for fields, fencing, bleachers and batting cages for the Bay Shore-Brightwaters Little League.

The state did not publish a construction schedule for the Melville renovation.

How to get involved

Island Harvest's headquarters is at 126 Spagnoli Road in Melville. People interested in the Workforce Skills Development Institute can find program details and next session dates on the food bank's website, and the food bank can be reached at 516-294-8528. Volunteers and donors can sign up on the same site.

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