In June 1980, Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank opened its doors in Pittsburgh’s Hill District. The Food Bank came at a time of great change in southwestern Pennsylvania. The once-thriving steel industry, which had been in a slow, steady decline for nearly 30 years, began to rapidly deteriorate during the early 1980s.
In January 1983, the region’s unemployment rate hit 18.2 percent leaving 212,000 people unemployed. The collapse of our region’s economy built on mills and mines devastated people who suddenly had no income, no way to pay their bills and no way to feed themselves or their families. The Food Bank was there to not only provide food assistance, but to help people get back on their feet.
In 2000, the Food Bank opened the doors on its facility in Duquesne. This facility was the first LEED-certified building in Pittsburgh and the first LEED-certified food bank in the nation. Learn more about that facility here.
Today, we work with a network of more than 1,000+ partners across the 11 counties we serve. In addition to sourcing, warehousing and distributing food, the Food Bank is actively engaged in stabilizing lives and confronting issues of chronic hunger, poor nutrition and health. And, through our advocacy efforts, we have become a primary driver in comprehensive anti-hunger endeavors regionally, statewide and at the national level.
