News from New York State Office of General Services

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Office of General Services Opens Downstate Distribution Center in Brentwood

ALBANY, NY (05/09/2008; 1008)(readMedia)--

Office of General Services (OGS) Commissioner John C. Egan announced today that the Downstate Distribution Center in Brentwood (Suffolk County) is now open and serving 128 of Long Island’s school districts and seven child care facilities. The announcement came following a tour by state and local officials of the newly-opened 120,000 square-foot facility located in the Heartland Business Center.

“We are pleased to be part of the community as we continue to serve more than 400,000 school children in Nassau and Suffolk counties,” Commissioner Egan said. “Since 1995 OGS has been providing nutritious foods to school children. This modern and energy efficient facility will ensure that the agency can provide this service for years to come.”

In addition to food distribution and storage for Long Island schools, the warehouse also stores government commodities for the State Health Department’s “Food & Nutrition” program, the Archdiocese of New York, and the Board of Jewish Education.

This state of the art facility will help the program provide OGS customers with an even higher level of service. OGS built the warehouse to its specifications and has maximized the used of energy efficient technology for lighting and commercial refrigeration. It is estimated that the facility will use 50 percent less energy than the previous location. In the first year of operation, OGS expects to realize a savings of $240,000 in energy costs.

OGS currently utilizes ten warehouses and eight food banks statewide for the distribution of government commodities. This facility is the only one run by the OGS Food Distribution and Warehousing unit, which coordinates the distribution of federally provided government commodity foods.

More than $80 million worth of food is distributed annually to over 3,500 recipient agencies throughout the state. There are approximately 1,050 New York school districts participating in the program. In 2007-08 fiscal year OGS distributed more than 18.2 million pounds of food from the Long Island distribution center.

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Photo Caption Information

Taking part in the ribbon cutting were, from left, Frank Smith, a legislative aide to Sen. Caesar Trunzo office, Assemblyman Phil Ramos, OGS First Deputy Commissioner Paul W. Larrabee, John Magnarelli, Regional Director for the USDA and Tom Osterhout, Director of the OGS Food Distribution and Warehousing unit.

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