/> The announcement comes at a time when Second Harvest Food Bank is facing growing demand for services in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties. Requests for assistance have increased nearly 42% over the past three years, forcing the Food Bank to expand into rented warehouse space. The new facility will nearly double the Food Bank’s overall space and increase its food distribution capacity by at least 50% over the next five years, from 46 million pounds of food to 69 million pounds, translating to 18 million additional meals provided. In addition to enabling fresh produce warehousing and distribution, the building will also become the Food Bank’s new Santa Clara County volunteer services hub. Once in operation this fall, the site will provide the Food Bank with a presence in the heart of Silicon Valley, centrally located between its main facility in San Jose and its San Mateo County operation on Bing Street in San Carlos.

Cypress Semiconductor, based in San Jose, has been the largest per-capita corporate donor to Second Harvest Food Bank in each of the past 20 years. In 2010, the company made a joint $1.1 million donation with former Cypress subsidiary, SunPower Corp., to put solar panels on the roof of the organization’s Curtner Avenue facility. The installation is one of the largest in Santa Clara Valley at 322 kilowatts, and is projected to save the Food Bank enough money in reduced electric bills to provide 6 million additional meals to the community over the 25-year life of the system.

Second Harvest Food Bank CEO Kathy Jackson said she is delighted with Cypress’s large gift. “We are thrilled by Cypress’s generous building donation to Second Harvest. We have been struggling to address physical capacity limitations for some time, and this truly transformative gift will allow us to provide increased amounts of fresh, nutritious produce to members of our community who are experiencing hunger —many for the first time.”

T.J. Rodgers, Cypress’s president and CEO, said, “It is humbling to realize that in such an affluent area as the Silicon Valley there are so many people in need of basic necessities like food and shelter. There is no organization that is more efficient at serving the community than Second Harvest Food Bank. Cypress is once again pleased to support Second Harvest in its effort to stamp out hunger in our community.”

For each of the past five years, Second Harvest Food Bank has received Charity Navigator’s 4-Star rating for efficiency and extraodinary fiscal responsibility, placing it in the top 5 percent of all nonprofit organizations in America.

The Cypress building that is being gifted to Second Harvest was, until recently, the headquarters site of Cypress’s Data Communications and Memory Products Divisions. Cypress moved these employees to other Cypress buildings that were not fully occupied, making the building available for donation to the Food Bank.