The Charles Stewart Mott Foundation in Flint, Michigan, has announced a two-year, $2.5 million pledge to the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan.

The funds will enable FBEM to turn a Flint warehouse into a new food collection, preparation, and distribution center. An initial grant of $1.5 million from the foundation will kick-off the $5.25 million renovation project, with the $1 million balance of the pledge contingent on FBEM raising $600,000 in matching funds by the end of 2014.

Expected to open in the fall, the new 62,000-square-foot center will double the organization's capacity to collect, process, and distribute food; enable it to triple its yearly delivery of fresh fruits and vegetables from four million to twelve million pounds; and provide new space for volunteers. In addition, a new commercial-style kitchen will help low-income Flint residents acquire life- and job-skills training in the culinary arts and enable the foodbank to add new menu items to the more than twenty-five hundred meals it prepares and distributes each day to local agencies serving children in the region.

"Being able to get enough nutritious food every day is a major challenge for so many people," said Kimberly Roberson, the foundation's program director for Flint-area grantmaking. "This new facility will help ensure that families in eastern Michigan have the opportunity to enjoy a healthier diet."