The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new warehouse at the Choctaw Food Distribution building on Tuesday, October 27, 2020. Tribal officials, along with project partners, were on hand to break ground and celebrate the future expanded capabilities of the Choctaw Food Distribution Program.
“I am proud to see our Tribal government continue to move forward and bring much needed updates that will benefit our people,” said Tribal Chief Cyrus Ben. “We saw during the early days of COVID that getting food in on time could have been a problem. With this expansion the Food Distribution program will be able to store more than a three-month supply as well as offer more food choices to its customers.”
The program applied for the USDA Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservation (FDPIR) CARES Act Facility: Improvement and Equipment funding in June of 2020 and received an award in the amount of $1,280,785. The funding will be used to expand the current warehouse, expand current shopping area, expand and renovate current restroom facilities, and purchase new equipment for the facility.
This expansion in total will add 5,200 square feet to the current facility located in the Pearl River community (Neshoba County). Choctaw Food Distribution services approximately 390 families throughout all eight Tribal communities.
The building was designed by Tribal Construction Management and the contractor is IKBI, Inc from Choctaw, MS. The project length is estimated to be six months.