As our COVID-19 response continues, we took a few moments to check in with staff members who manage and coordinate some of our various food programs. They interact with our neighbors of our community who need our services and witness firsthand the impact your generosity makes.
What are clients saying?
People are sincerely grateful for the produce they get through the Community Produce Program. We have seen more need, and we are working hard to meet it. There is so much gratitude; I hear “thank you” a hundred times a day! Many more people now simply can’t afford fresh fruit and vegetables. If they didn’t get it through us, they simply would go without.
What is the Community Produce Program?
The Community Produce Program gives out fresh fruits and vegetables at 140 distributions a month. Each person ends up taking home about 20 pounds of produce. It’s more essential than ever right now that people have access to healthy food so they have money for their other basic expenses.
What do you want people to know?
We’re always going to be here when we’re needed! With regard to safety, we keep the line moving smoothly to accommodate social distancing by letting people know how things work in both English and Spanish. There’s been an added bonus–we found that our new table layout actually is getting clients through the line faster, so we plan on keeping this new system!
Rumor has it, you add a little “flair” to your distributions?
Yes, I try to lighten spirits by playing music through my personal portable speaker. I find both our regular volunteers and the clients react positively when I put on something like the Earth Wind and Fire Pandora station.
For information about our food programs, please visit foodbankccs.org/getfood or call 855-309-FOOD.
How do we help seniors?
Senior Food Program distributions take place twice a month and are held at churches, senior centers and senior housing facilities. Seniors are able to get two bags of groceries which typically consist of items such as bread, pasta, canned goods, cheese and produce. We have 3500 households participating at 33 sites. It’s an incredible network.
What challenges are you facing in trying to feed seniors in this COVID-19 age?
We understand the concerns that seniors might have about leaving their homes to get food at a Senior Food Program distribution, and our response to that is we believe our sites are a safer alternative to going to a grocery store. Our distributions are held in large spaces and have fewer people. We control the supply chain and we control who is onsite volunteering. We understand we are serving a very vulnerable population, so we have put many safety protocols in place.
Who is eligible to participate in the Senior Food Program?
Anyone 55 or older who meets the income guidelines can come sign-up for the free program in their city or nearby city if they bring the following items with them:
For distribution times, dates and locations, please visit foodbankccs.org/getfood or call 855-309-3663 (FOOD).
Usually we bring a little extra food for walk-ups, so there is a good chance seniors could be given groceries the same day they register for the program.
What else should seniors know?
Adults qualifying for the Senior Food Program can also participate in the Food Assistance Program and our Community Produce Program. We want seniors to get enough proper nutrition to keep themselves as healthy as possible. Also, don’t forget that as of last year, seniors receiving SSI can also apply for CalFresh.
How do we nourish kids?
We’re continuing to partner with school districts in Contra Costa and Solano counties through our Farm 2 Kids program. Thankfully, all local school districts are stepping up and holding free lunch distributions for students during the school closures, and we’re providing them with weekly deliveries of supplemental food boxes and produce bags.
How have things changed because of the early school closures?
It was crazy the first two weeks after schools closed. Trying to quickly make a new plan in unprecedented circumstances with eight different school districts was definitely a challenge. Now that the initial logistical work has been done, it’s eased up a little. Our school programs have been established for a long time and usually run like a well-oiled machine. Things are a lot more fluid now; I’m constantly communicating with our district contacts and warehouse managers because sometimes we have to make changes with very short notice.
What about your job is most rewarding?
I get to leave work every day and think, “Well, that mattered.” I have gotten to know many of our clients, and when they tell me how much the food we give them makes a difference in their lives, or how excited they are about the new produce I picked for the month, it’s the best feeling!
What are your biggest challenges?
I struggle with knowing that even though food banks are meant to be a short-term emergency resource, many people are forced to use them as a long-term solution to the systemic problem of hunger. That’s why I love hearing about the great work Cassidie and Mary Ann (our advocacy team) are doing to fight for our community in the higher echelons of government.
Understandably, many questions are coming in and we’re doing our best during this evolving situation to keep everyone informed about how they can best support the Food Bank and our neighbors. Here are the answers to some recent frequently asked questions.
I heard the National Guard is helping food banks, do you still need me to volunteer?
Yes, we currently have open shifts in our Concord warehouse and we definitely can use the help giving out food at distributions.
Do you have gloves I can wear while volunteering?
Yes. We provide gloves while volunteers work in both warehouses and while serving food at distributions.
Do you have masks I can wear while volunteering?
No, we do not provide masks for volunteers, however, you are welcome – and encouraged – to bring your own.
What about social distancing?
We’re doing the best that we can to accommodate social distancing where possible. Volunteers in our sorting rooms/warehouses will be grouped into 10 people or fewer.
Would you rather receive food donations or money donations?
Though we greatly appreciate food donations, the majority of food we are giving out right now is in the form of emergency boxes with specific items that we are purchasing. Due to our volume, we are able to purchase food at a significant discount compared to retail pricing and your donation dollars go further. So financial donations are best at this time.
Are your programs open?
All Food Bank programs are still running with the exception of a couple Senior Food Program sites. For up to date info on Food Bank programs, please visit our website at foodbankccs.org/getfood. Most partner agencies are still open; to confirm you can call them directly or call the Food Bank at 1-855-309-FOOD.
Can I go to the Food Bank to pick up food?
We don’t give out food directly from the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano. Food is handed out at hundreds of sites throughout the community. To find a distribution near you, visit foodbankccs.org/getfood or call 1-855-309-FOOD.
How do I know the food you’re distributing is safe?
As a Feeding America member food bank, we are already held to the highest standards of food safety. To help stop the spread of COVID-19, we have implemented the use of gloves to handle even nonperishable food and we are now pre-bagging produce before it leaves our warehouses.
How are pantries/soup kitchens you partner with changing their food distributions to make them safer for clients?
The Food Bank is in close communication with our partner pantries and soup kitchens and offers regular guidance on best practices such as not allowing unwell volunteers to attend distribution, requiring volunteers to frequently wash hands and use gloves, offering pre-bagged food items, limiting the number of guests allowed inside at one time, using signage and floor markers to facilitate 6 ft. social distancing, and utilizing new methods such as drive-through distributions.
Can you deliver food?
Unfortunately, no. In order to reach a large number of people at one time, we have distributions where we require food to be picked up. We do not have the capability to do individual deliveries. We recommend you reach out to Meals on Wheels or visit 211.org for assistance with home delivery requests.
Can you help people file for food benefits?
Yes, we have employees who can help people file for CalFresh (nationally known as SNAP). Please note we are not able to help people file for unemployment. For help with CalFresh visit foodbankccs.org/calfresh.
Do you know of any other local resources to help during this time?
Call 211 or visit 211.org to find local services.can call 211 (their staff can assist in a variety of languages) or visit 211.org. 211 is a call center that has access to a large database of all social services resources.
As the needs of the community change during this health and financial crisis, stay informed at foodbankccs.org/covid19.
What you helped us achieve in 2018
You embodied the spirit of community by pitching in with our fire-relief efforts in Mendocino and Butte counties. Our increased work in Butte County continues indefinitely as we deliver food each week to people getting back on their feet.
Your support fueled the Community Produce Program 7 days a week at 69 sites. This critical program nourishes over 26,000 households each month that might not have access to produce otherwise.
After a long struggle between Hunger Fighters and the State SSI recipients can finally qualify for CalFresh which will pull many seniors and persons with disabilities out of poverty.
Grocery recovery has been at the core of our work since 1975 and never stopped growing. In 2018 we recovered 4 million pounds of still-great food like meat, produce and dairy from local grocery stores including new partners in 2018 – Costco and Raley’s.
You gave yourself! With well over 100,000 volunteer hours we couldn’t operate a day without you.
Goals we will achieve together in 2019
Hunger has a detrimental effect on health. A large number of our clients report having diabetes, high blood pressure and depression/anxiety. In 2019 we will expand partnerships with health clinics and doctors to prescribe nutritious food and improve the health of our community.
We will continue to advocate for job training and workforce development instead of harmful cuts to safety net programs like CalFresh for job seekers and low-wage workers.
We are working with partners to grow our Grocery Recovery Program to exceed 130 stores including new food rescue from Trader Joe’s.
Find out how you can give monthly to change lives daily at foodbankccs.org/Nourish365
Liz was struggling to make ends meet for her family after a difficult divorce drained her savings and an injury prevented her from working.
At Christmas time, despair turned to hope when she learned of a Holiday Food Basket distribution at a Food Bank Partner agency.
Liz and her children were grateful for all the food they received including the turkey, canned veggies and baking items.
You can bring hope and celebration to your neighbors like Liz during the holidays.
We need your help to meet our 3 million dollar goal. Your support allows us to continue providing food for daily needs as well as 30,000 extra bags of food for local households that need a little help to make a special holiday meal.
Every gift provides hope. Please give today at www.foodbankccs.org/holidays.
The Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano is delighted to announce the roll out of a newly redesigned website in time for our 40th anniversary. Just as the need for food assistance has changed over the past 40 years, the way people obtain information has also changed.
We understand that food insecurity affects many hard-working people who need a variety of ways to find help. Our upgraded website offers a mobile device-friendly design with simplified navigation. People in need can find out about Food Bank programs, distribution locations (including a new mapping feature) and access recipes for healthy meals on a budget.
Not only do the people who use our services benefit from our new website layout, but so do the thousands of volunteers that help us serve our community. Both new and existing volunteers can learn about volunteer opportunities directly through our website. It’s easy to sign up for a variety of volunteer shifts, automatically track the hours you’ve completed and you’ll even receive confirmations and reminders.
Financial donors can learn more about where their contributions are going and who they are serving. Transparency is important to the Food Bank, which has helped us earn a remarkable 4-star rating with Charity Navigator, so it’s easy to find our financials including our annual report. Please consider making a donation in honor of our 40th anniversary of serving our community. Currently, donations can be doubled due to a matching grant.
“In redesigning the website, we kept the people who seek out our services in mind. We want them to easily obtain the information they need in order to put food on their plate,” says Larry Sly, Executive Director. “In addition, we made it easier for people to volunteer their time and make financial donations, as that ultimately translates into the ability to serve more people in need.”
The website has a new look, but the address remains the same www.foodbankccs.org.
We’d like to thank the fabulous team at MIGHTYminnow for their stellar efforts in making our website vision a reality.
**The contest is closed and prizes are on the way! Thank you for participating.**
To honor our 40th anniversary, we are holding a contest. All you have to do is a look around the redesigned Food Bank website to find the answers to three questions. The information can easily be found; we promise. We will mail you a pretty cool prize as a thank you for checking out our website’s fresh new look and improved functionality. It’s just that simple!
In May, the Contra Costa County Bar Association held its 24th annual Food From the Bar fundraiser for the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano.
Local lawyers and law firms went on a two-week fundraising blitz by 34 large and small law offices in the county, whose 700+ employees helped raise more than $51,350 and over 450 pounds of food.
Five winners in categories based on the size of the law firms have emerged.
The winners of the 2015 Food from the Bar Competition are:
Congratulations to the winners and thank you for your generosity and dedication to the cause!
Over the years, the Bar Association has collected more than $1,150,000 and 55 tons of food for the Food Bank. The attorneys say they are already planning next year’s fundraiser and comedy show, as they work toward their second million in donations!
A special thank you to our sponsors; we could not have done this without your support!
Wells Fargo | Archer Norris | McNamara, Ney, Beatty, Slattery, Borges & Ambacher | Newmeyer & Dillion, LLP | The Recorder | Steele George Schofield & Ramos, LLP | U.S. Legal Support | Back Forty Texas BBQ | Brown Church & Gee, LLP | Buchman Provine Brothers Smith, LLP | Certified Reporting Services | Contra Costa County Bar Association | Esquire | Frankel Goldware Ferber, LLP | Gagen McCoy McMahon Koss Markowitz & Raines | Miller Starr Regalia | Quivx | Scott Valley Bank | Vasquez Benisek & Lindgren, LLP
The Letter Carriers’ Food Drive is coming up on Saturday, May 9th. The NALC Branch 1111 Food Drive coordinator and a Food Bank representative went out to the post offices to speak to the staff about the food drive and how important this drive is for those in need. Our first talk was at the Moraga Post Office. Help your letter carrier feed our community members living with hunger by leaving a bag of food out by your mailbox the Saturday before Mother’s Day. Your letter carrier will pick up the bag of food and bring it back to our trucks waiting at each of the post offices. Last year they collected over 170,000 pounds of food in our two counties. Let’s help them surpass that number this year!
Guest post by Rotary Member Hugh Toloui: A group of volunteers from the Rotary Club of Clayton Valley Concord Sunrise have been rolling out of bed in the crack of dawn every Tuesday morning and have come to the Food Bank to serve. They have done so regularly and faithfully for the past nearly eleven years. Up to the present, they have sorted and packed nearly two million pounds of donated food that are collected in those familiar barrels as well as those from the large chain stores, boy scouts, mail carriers, etc.
Why the donated food need to be sorted, you may ask? Before the food is distributed to the needy via some over one hundred pantries, dozens of charity organizations, shelters, etc., they need to be checked to weed out the out-of-dates, dented and damaged, proper labeling, etc., and boxed in some 16 different categories.
This group of dedicated Rotarians have indeed tried to live up to the lofty Rotary motto: “Service Above Self”. Serving at the Contra Costa / Solano Food Bank is one of this Club’s many domestic and International service projects. Knowing that the beneficiaries are the needy and the less fortunate, adds an extra dimension of satisfaction to this service project.
Monopoly money, something I remember thinking as a young child standing impatiently by my mother’s side, watching her tear paper coupons out of a book and hand them to the cashier. I was too young to understand anything different about the poverty my brothers and I grew up in. Not long ago, I found myself in a similar situation. A few years back, instead of waking up Christmas morning excited about opening presents like most children, my oldest daughter Lilia ran into my room and jumped on my bed exclaiming to the world that she knew it was Christmas because Santa had come and filled up the kitchen with food. That was my epiphany. I’m Marla Williams and this is the window into the life of a struggling family. A mother determined to break the cycle of poverty. A woman fueled by the love of my family, my community, my education, and leadership.
Our family has faced some challenges in the past few years. In July 2008, I held a job in the mortgage industry that paid fairly well. Two years later, I was laid off. Michael, my husband, is a veteran who has served two tours in Iraq. He was enrolled at Los Medanos College working on his associate’s degree at that time and employed full-time making minimum wage. Through the discouragement of the situation, the children had to adapt suddenly to several new changes at once. They went from a life that was comfortable to a life that left them struggling. They have slept in the backseat in the early hours of morning while I worked a second job throwing newspapers out of the car window to make ends meet.
My daughters, Lilia and Toria, know what it is to be hungry and go without. It is their love that keeps my husband and I motivated. I decided to seek out help within my community. I went to social services to see what programs I might qualify for to temporarily better our situation. After the frustration of being told we make too much money for some forms of assistance, I discovered that we could get help with groceries and fresh produce from the Food Bank.
After taking career training courses, I am helping my family change our circumstances, the holidays this year will look different for my girls. Michael is no longer working at a minimum wage job, however money is still tight. The Food Bank is the glue that holds struggling families together when we have expenses like a $900.00 car repair and there isn’t enough money left over to buy groceries. I went to the local pantry to pick up groceries just this morning so we can make it until his next payday this Friday.
I’m a dedicated individual when it comes to making our communities more resourceful for families in need. I believe in the power one individual can have to change not only their circumstances for the better but for the community around them as well. My family is on our way to no longer needing support from the Food Bank, but many like us are still in need of a helping hand. I will continue to fight to save community programs that are so vital to hundreds of families facing financial challenges in this economy.
