A nonprofit devoting to feeding children in Dauphin County announced a plan in 2022 to
construct a warehouse
, in part to provide additional protected space to assemble and distribute food packs to children in need.
That plan came to a halt earlier this year after Cocoa Packs failed to pay its construction firm, JEM Group, for months, according to a mechanic’s lien filed in Dauphin County court.
“Cocoa Packs informed JEM Group that it ran out of funds for the project,” the lien said.
JEM Group claims Cocoa Packs stopped fulfilling payment applications in August, and now owes JEM group more than $1 million.
The lien was also levied against Hershey Trust Company, which provided a long-term lease for the property with the option to eventually purchase.
The Hershey Trust Company told PennLive Cocoa Packs leases land from them, “but the Trust is not involved with this construction project.”
Cocoa Packs, and JEM Group did not respond to requests for comment.
The warehouse was supposed to be developed on about 40-acres of land near Route 322 and Waltonville Road. Now, an empty husk of a building stands in the place of what would have been a one-story, 20,000-square-foot facility.
The facility was intended to provide a single space for Cocoa Packs’ operations, including assembling and distributing food packs to kids, the Cocoa Packs Clothing Closet and the Cocoa Packs Food Rescue Program.
Those operations are running out of three separate locations and the new warehouse was intended to reduce the operational and logistical inefficiencies.
The new warehouse also was designed to accommodate the growing number of children using the programs. The nonprofit’s capacity increased but its space to operate had not.
It was also supposed to usher in a new wave of programming for the community, including an educational teaching kitchen and café, a learning center and lending library and a garden for children to plant and grow fresh produce.
It was a lofty plan for the nonprofit, that now, has stalled out.
This rendering shows how the final 20,000-square-foot facility in Derry Township was supposed to look. (Rendering provided)
In 2023, Cocoa Packs had a net income of $312,268 and its net assets were $1,200,646, according to
tax filings
. More than 75% of its income that year came from charitable contributions. Filings for 2024 are not yet available.
The largest expenses in 2023 were not detailed beyond spending $1.3 million in “grants to individuals,” of food and clothing, up from $538,000 the prior year, and spending about $244,000 in unspecified “program costs,” down from about $318,00 the prior year.
The program costs were listed in a generic category of “other expenses,” on the tax forms, which is used when all the listed specific expenses like legal services, office supplies or advertising, don’t fit.
As the only paid employee, President Christine Drexler listed a salary of $47,000.
Drexler started the nonprofit in 2015 in the Derry Township School District in an effort to make sure children in the district had a secure source of food. It’s since grown to more than 1,300 children enrolled for weekly packs, spanning 17 school districts and five counties, according to its
website
.
During Covid, Cocoa Packs lost its space inside Hershey Middle School for its weekly food drives, so, “we opened our operations in Spring Creek Church of the Brethren for packing inside,” Drexler told ABC27. “And then we’ve been in an outside drive-thru since March of 2020 in beating down sun, the whipping wind, the freezing cold, the snow, the rain, you name it, we do.”
The warehouse was intended to move these operations inside.
They could not find an existing facility that met their needs and eventually found the property on which construction began.
Earlier this year, months after the payments to JEM Group stopped, Drexler started
an online fundraiser
aiming to raise $500,000 to help with construction costs. The campaign has raised just under $8,000 so far.
It remains unclear what will become of the project, but the lien could force a foreclosure sale to satisfy the debt.
Cocoa Packs, nonprofit organization that provides supplemental food and other support to children in the area, broke ground in June 2022 on a new 20,000-square-foot facility in Derry Township. (Photo provided)
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