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Updated: July 25, 2019

Maine tech entrepreneur and wife pledge $500K to Good Shepherd Food Bank

Tech entrepreneur Frederick “Fritz” Onion and his wife Susan Onion, of Wayne, have pledged a $500,000 matching gift to help Good Shepherd Food Bank create a new branch in Hampden.

Courtesy / The Onion Foundation
Frederick "Fritz" Onion

The gift brings the food bank closer to its fundraising goal of $5 million to renovate a former newspaper printing plant into a 40,000-square-foot food distribution center, according to a news release Wednesday.

Good Shepherd has already raised $4.2 million in a capital campaign launched last year.

“We are incredibly grateful for the leadership support of Susan and Fritz,” said Kristen Miale, the food bank’s president. “Since learning of their generosity, we’ve been working to secure some early gifts toward the match … If we can raise about $400,000 more to be matched by the Onions, we will meet our $5 million goal.”

Courtesy / The Onion Foundation
Susan Onion

Good Shepherd supplies more than 400 food pantries, senior programs and other organizations throughout the state, and distributed over 25 million meals in 2018, according to Miale.

But hunger remains a major challenge in Maine.

More than 14% of households in the state — and one in five children — struggle with food insecurity, according to the federal Department of Agriculture. Maine’s rate is the ninth-highest in the country, and the highest in the Northeast.

Good Shepherd has set a goal of distributing an additional 10 million meals annually by 2025. But the food bank’s current distribution center in Auburn doesn’t have enough capacity, Miale said.

The new center is a former plant for the Bangor Daily News at 11 Penobscot Meadow Drive, which was shuttered in 2013 and acquired by Good Shepherd two years later. Renovations began last summer and are expected to be finished in September. When complete, the facility will have three temperature- and humidity-controlled zones, allowing the food bank to store more fresh food — including local farm purchases — for year-round distribution.

Fritz and Susan Onion, who grew up in Farmington, head the Onion Foundation, a private charitable organization headquartered in Auburn.

In 2004, Fritz Onion co-founded Pluralsight Inc. (Nasdaq: PS), a Utah-based provider of online technology training whose customers include more than half of the Fortune 500. Pluralsight’s revenues grew 39% last year to $232 million, and its market capitalization is over $4 billion.

In 2014, the Onions created and endowed the foundation to support Maine nonprofits.

“Good Shepherd plays a critical role in providing food security for so many Mainers,” said Susan Onion in the news release. “We are honored to give our support to such an impactful organization.”

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1 Comments

Anonymous
July 30, 2019

Remarkable generosity.

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