Long Beach Food Bank Fends Off Foreclosure

After operating for months under a threat of foreclosure, officials with the Long Beach Food Bank got an early Christmas this week when they were allowed to refinance a $450,000 mortgage on a warehouse used to stage food deliveries for thousands of needy residents.

Food bank officials had fallen nearly a year behind in payments to mortgage holders Earl Lundhigh and Robert McNulty, according to James Graham, food bank development director. But in a check-passing ceremony Monday at the Farmers & Merchants Bank of Long Beach, the two local businessmen agreed to accept a $63,000 interest payment in return for extending the mortgage and revising its terms. Now, instead of making one large principal and interest payment each year, food bank officials will be able to make more manageable monthly payments, starting Jan. 1.

To underscore their support for the food bank, businessmen Lundhigh and McNulty took $5,600 of their $63,000 interest check and donated it back to the food bank. Farmers & Merchants Bank added a $5,000 donation, as did bank President Kenneth Walker.

‘In a Financial Bind’

Lundhigh and McNulty “had every right to foreclose,” said Roger Magnuson, food bank board chairman and pastor of St. Lukes Lutheran Church. “We were really in a financial bind. . . . Our growth has been so great that we’ve really neglected our fund raising and public relations.”

To remedy that, Magnuson announced that the organization plans to launch a $1-million fund-raising drive next May to not only pay off the mortgage in advance of its five-year term, but also to expand the 60,000-square-foot warehouse and add about $300,000 worth of structural reinforcement to make it better able to withstand an earthquake.

As the second largest food bank in Los Angeles County, the 7-year-old Long Beach operation serves thousands of low-income families through a variety of distribution programs, including one that feeds about 900 impoverished senior citizens. Each month the bank distributes about 800,000 pounds of bread, butter, cheese and other staples that are acquired through federal programs, purchased, donated by individuals or salvaged from two area grocery store chains.

Two weeks ago, the strike by meat cutters severely slowed grocery chain shipments to the point that the food bank virtually ran out of supplies and began to turn needy families away. On Monday, officials said that the situation had eased, although supplies remain tight. The warehouse is at 1444 San Francisco Ave.