Relocated Food Bank Reopens

Lake Forest Mayor Kathryn McCullough and her husband, Christopher, greeted about a dozen patrons and nearly 50 area business owners and city officials Monday at the grand reopening of their Adopt-a-Neighbor food bank, which moved to a strip mall in the couple’s hometown in February.

The new center is only about a quarter of the size of the food bank’s previous home in a Mission Viejo storage facility, and the group hopes to raise enough money to purchase a larger facility.

“We would need about $150,000 down and our payments would be about the same” as the current rent, the mayor said.

Years of operating on tight purse strings caught up with the group. They were evicted in January from the Mission Viejo center they had occupied since 1988.

“It was really a sad thing because we were at the Mission Viejo facility for so long,” Christopher McCullough said.

“It wasn’t until we had moved everything completely out of that facility that we found out we got this new place.”

In just two weeks, the group was up and running in the new center at 24601 Raymond Way, thanks to a donor’s promise to pay the $3,100 monthly rent for a year. The center continued its work helping the needy in between moves, distributing groceries out of a van.

On Monday, a large red-and-white “Grand Opening” banner and a table full of cookies decorated the entrance to the 1,700-square-foot facility.

Volunteers gave tours of the renovated center throughout the day, explaining the charity’s services to newcomers. And the mayor prodded area business owners for donations during an afternoon reception.

“Hey, we’ll take a dollar,” the mayor told them. “We’ll even take 25 cents, and if you’ve only got a dime, I’ll take that. It only takes $7 to feed a family.”

It costs about $5,500 a month to run the center, which provides food and other staples to about 10,000 people a month, said Christopher McCullough.