Blog - Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano

The Community Produce Program Adds 12 Additional Locations in Contra Costa County

September 21, 2017 By Jenny Leave a Comment

We are very grateful for the Thomas J. Long Foundation’s support that has given the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano the opportunity to increase the number of Community Produce Program distribution sites throughout Contra Costa County.

The Food Bank’s Community Produce Program was originally created five years ago because many of our neighbors do not have the financial or transportation resources to be able to get enough fresh produce in their diet. This new funding is allowing the Food Bank to go from twice-a-month distributions at 56 sites, 5 days a week to 68 sites, 7 days a week. By now having distributions on Sundays, more working families will be able to attend. The dozen new sites are projected to be fully operational by the end of October.

A recent World Health Organization report on diet recommends an increased intake of fruits and vegetables to help prevent chronic diseases such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and obesity. That seems simple enough, but the reality for many local families is they do not have easy access to fresh fruits and vegetables.

Many of the new sites will be at County Health Centers, furthering the connection between eating healthy and diet-related disease prevention. The Food Bank believes the healthier our community members are, the better off our entire society will be.

For more information about where to access fresh produce visit www.foodbankccs.org/getfood.

Do you want to make a difference within your community? We need volunteers to assist in bagging produce for the Community Produce Program and to help at distribution sites. Please sign up at foodbankccs.org/volunteer.

No Immigration Action at Food Banks during Harvey

September 8, 2017 By Larry

Food assistance needed without fear

As part of the response plan for Hurricane Harvey, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published a joint press release encouraging community members to seek emergency assistance without the fear of immigration action. The statement clarified that, “routine non-criminal immigration enforcement operations will not be conducted at evacuation sites, or assistance centers such as shelters or food banks.”

Assurances like this are essential to calm fears and maintain access to critical services.

Unfortunately, confusion and fear around the issue of immigration have caused some local families to feel that it is no longer safe to use needed services available in our community.

The Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano believes the Department of Homeland Security can prevent unnecessary hunger by expanding the scope of this commitment. We urge them to issue guidance that includes food distribution sites on the list of sensitive locations protected from routine immigration enforcement actions. Everyone should feel safe receiving nutrition assistance, not just those impacted by Hurricane Harvey.

The Department of Homeland Security established that its emergency response priorities are “to promote life-saving and life-sustaining activities,” but not all emergencies are caused by natural disasters. Food banks across the country provide life-saving and life-sustaining services every single day for families coping with personal emergencies, like a sudden illness or the loss of a job.

The Food Bank and our partner agencies provide food to anyone in need. As a private nonprofit, we do not ask and are not required to report the legal status of anyone we serve. However widespread worries and misconceptions about new immigration policies have led some families to avoid our services.

The number of clients at Food Bank distributions has decreased since November, with the sharpest decline in January. Caitlin Sly, Program Director at the Food Bank, explains that, “immigration fears undoubtedly play a role in the drop we’re seeing at distributions and in applications for federal nutrition assistance. People are afraid to seek out the help they need.”

We recently met a woman at a distribution in Fairfield who was picking up food for herself and another family. She explained that her neighbors stopped coming to that site because of their immigration status; the parents were afraid and barely left their home at all. Worried that her neighbor’s children were going without food, she offered to bring home an extra bag for them. Not everyone is lucky enough to have such concerned neighbors.

Another woman in Concord shared with our staff that she decided to homeschool her 18 year-old son during his senior year of high school. Although he had protected status under the DREAM Act at that time, his mother was afraid that going to public school in this political climate was too risky. She said she would rather her son miss out on the free lunches he got at school than risk deportation.

The Food Bank encourages all public leaders, from local city council members to the Director of Homeland Security, to help fight hunger. We urge them to address barriers to food access created by the climate of fear and uncertainty. Everyone deserves the reassurance that the victims of Hurricane Harvey have received – that there will be no repercussions for seeking out food assistance.

No one should be hungry, especially when resources like the Food Bank are available.

Accolades about being green are turning us red!

August 22, 2017 By Jenny

This summer the Food Bank was presented with the Green Business Award from the City of Fairfield. We were recognized for our reuse and recycling practices and for successfully implementing waste reduction. Our waste numbers continue to decrease thanks to our Grocery Recovery Program, AIB recycling procedures, FIFO inventory system and the commitment by our staff and volunteers.

We are also pleased to announce we now have an organics/compost bin at our Concord warehouse. Thanks to Mt Diablo Resource Recovery (formerly known as Concord Disposal Service), bread and fruit that is not fit for consumption is being diverted from the landfills to become healthy garden soil.

State of the Food Bank

August 10, 2017 By Larry

It’s important to us to be transparent with our valued supporters. The 2016-2017 fiscal year recently came to a close and the numbers are in. Here’s a brief breakdown of what those figures mean.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS

We met our revenue goals thanks to generous community support.
Fresh produce now accounts for a record-high 58% of the total pounds of food distributed.
Food donations from food drives increased by 20%.
Community Produce Program on track to add new sites and increase distributions to seven days a week this quarter.
New partnerships with healthcare professionals are allowing us to nourish even more people in need.

CHALLENGES MOVING FORWARD

Over 100,000 individuals in Contra Costa and Solano counties rely on CalFresh to put food on the table. The current proposed massive cuts to this federal program would increase hunger to a level that the Food Bank simply couldn’t mitigate.
We continue to have a shortage of volunteers in Fairfield; 68% of shifts go unfilled. Though this is an improvement
from 76% unfulfilled last year, the need is still dire.

What you can do to help

DONATE – 96 cents of of every $1.00
donated goes towards food programs.
foodbankccs.org/hungeractionmonth
VOLUNTEER – Sign up to volunteer by visiting foodbankccs.org/volunteerfairfield.
ADVOCATE – Please help local food banks today by sending a letter to your elected officials calling on them to protect and strengthen this vital anti-hunger program. foodbankccs.org/advocate

The 26th Annual Food From the Bar Fund Drive Raises over $56K!

July 3, 2017 By Renee

This year 24 law offices in Contra Costa County, representing 742 employees, recently raised more than $56,000 and 223 pounds of food! The Food Bank sincerely thanks the local legal community and our generous sponsors for fighting hunger!

Winners of the 2017 Food From the Bar Competition:

1 – 5 Employees:
Law Offices of Suzanne N. Boucher

6 – 10 Employees:
Brown, Gee & Wenger, LLP

11 – 20 Employees:
Bramson, Plutzik, Mahler & Birkhaeuser, LLP

21 – 50 Employees:
Gagen, McCoy, McMahon, Koss, Markowitz & Raines, A Professional Corporation

51 and over Employees:
Archer Norris, PLC

Thank you to the Food From the Bar Sponsors:
3D-Forensic
ADR Services
Aiken Welch Court Reporters
Archer Norris, PLC
Brown, Gee & Wenger, LLP
Buchman Provine Brothers Smith LLP
Certified Reporting Services
Contra Costa County Bar Association
Esquire
Ferber Law
First Legal Network
Gagen, McCoy, McMahon, Koss, Markowitz & Raines, A Professional Corporation
Huseby
Law Offices of Suzanne N. Boucher
McNamara, Ney, Beatty, Slattery, Borges & Ambacher LLP
Miller Starr Regalia
Newmeyer & Dillion LLP
QUiVX
Vasquez Benisek & Lindgren LLP

Where does the produce come from?

June 21, 2017 By Rachel

Walk through your local produce section, and try to find a cabbage the size of a basketball or a tiny apple you can easily hide in the palm of your hand. You’ll have to look hard because of retail standards for produce perfection. These expectations can lead to food waste. Luckily, the Food Bank receives those edible, (and sometimes funny-looking), fruits and vegetables and distributes millions of pounds of would-be-waste into the hands of hungry neighbors.

Everyone benefits from the partnership between the California Association of Food Banks and farmers. Natural resources aren’t wasted, farmers are compensated for their hard work and the people served by the Food Bank receive fresh fruits and vegetables that they otherwise might not be able to afford.

Thank you for making a healthy difference in the lives of our neighbors.

Click the image for a printable PDF.

Contra Costa County Library’s Lunch at the Library Program Begins

June 7, 2017 By Guest

The Contra Costa County Library is serving lunch at the Concord Library and eight other library locations in the county this summer in an effort to prevent a summer nutrition gap. Many low-income children face nutrient deficiencies when school closes for the summer break. Meals are served at no charge to children up to age 18.

Lunch in the Library is part of a statewide collaboration between the California Library Association (CLA) and the California Summer Meal Coalition to unite libraries and summer meal providers and keep kids healthy and engaged when school is out.

Free Lunch at the Library
June 20 – July 20
Tuesdays and Thursdays
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.
Concord Library
2900 Salvio Street
Concord, CA 94520

In addition to lunch, the library will offer a variety of free programs including board games, arts and crafts, musical performances, Legos, movies, and more. For more information about Concord’s Lunch at the Library program or to learn about other free programs, please call (925) 646-5455 or visit the Concord Library’s website .

President’s Budget Will Increase Hunger and Hardship

June 1, 2017 By Carly

The president released his proposed FY 2018 budget this month that calls for $193 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) over the next decade. These deep cuts represent a 25 percent reduction in funding, a move that would increase hunger and deepen poverty for millions of Americans already struggling to make ends meet. About 67,000 individuals in Contra Costa County and 40,000 in Solano County relied on federally-funded SNAP benefits each month of 2016 – about half of whom were children.

In an effort to reduce federal spending on SNAP, the budget both cuts vital nutrition funding and pushes costs onto states—an historic shift that would permanently alter SNAP’s entitlement structure and abandon our nation’s long-standing bi-partisan commitment to combat hunger. The current structure of SNAP allows the program to flexibly expand and contract its caseload based on need, ensuring that benefits are available to anyone who qualifies. The proposed changes, however, would require states to pay for 25 percent of benefits that are currently fully funded by the federal government.

Restructuring SNAP’s program structure would require California to absorb $1.8 billion annually in SNAP benefit costs. Such cost-shifting measures would undermine SNAP’s efficiency, flexibility, and reach—particularly in times of economic recession.

The budget proposal also targets low-income seniors and the working poor by proposing to eliminate the minimum monthly SNAP benefit of $16. This would result in 110,000 individuals in California being kicked off the program, the vast majority of whom are seniors living on Social Security and low-income workers who use SNAP to supplement their earnings. Eliminating the minimum benefit would also cause the state to lose $14 million each month in SNAP benefits that currently flow into local economies and support food retailers and farmers.

The president’s budget contains a number of other harmful proposals that would increase hunger, restrict eligibility and reduce benefits for California’s low-income families. These threats including time limiting SNAP benefits for childless workers in areas of high unemployment, benefit caps for large SNAP households, and prohibiting California and other states with high costs of living from assisting families with incomes over 130 percent of the federal poverty line.

These proposed cuts to SNAP would force even more Americans to rely on emergency food assistance providers like food banks, but the president’s budget proposes $27 million in cuts to these charitable organizations. The federal Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) provides local organizations with dried and canned food items, representing more than 13% of all pounds distributed by the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano last year.

“There is no way that food banks and other charities could replace the proposed billions in cuts to SNAP benefits,” says Caitlin Sly, Program Director at the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano. “Food banks are a complement, not a substitute, to the safety net.” Only 1 in 20 emergency assistance meals are provided by nonprofits, the rest flow through federal nutrition programs like SNAP.

The budget proposal also includes cuts of $627 billion from Medicaid, $21 billion from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF, also known as Welfare-to-Work), and $72 billion from Social Security programs like Supplemental Security Income (SSI) that support low-income seniors and people with disabilities.

The president’s budget sends the message that hunger is an acceptable outcome in America. The Food Bank is urging Congress to oppose any budget proposal that goes back on our decades-long commitment to eradicate hunger and support a bi-partisan budget deal that invests in the health and nutrition of nation’s most vulnerable residents.

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Low-income Pittsburg and San Pablo residents receive free produce to improve health

May 18, 2017 By Jenny

The Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano is proud to be collaborating with Food As Medicine, a group of physicians in the Contra Costa County medical system, to make nutritious food more accessible to the low-income patients they serve.

As their name implies, the physicians linked to Food As Medicine believe proper nutrition can help the country’s obesity and type 2 diabetes epidemic. Both organizations understand that one’s economic status often has a direct correlation with the level of nourishment they receive. Empty calories commonly cost less than whole foods packed with essential nutrients and vitamins.

The Food Bank is now running a farmers’ market style food give-away twice a month in San Pablo and Pittsburg.

San Pablo’s distributions occur at the West County Health Center on the 2^nd and 4^th Saturdays of the month between 2:00pm and 3:00 pm.

Pittsburg distributions occur at the Pittsburg Health center WIC on the first and third Thursdays of the month between 1:30pm and 3:00pm.

Qualified households can pick up approximately 20 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables and recipients are encouraged to bring one or two bags with handles.

“It’s a positive experience to see the physicians be excited by what we can contribute to their efforts to improve people’s health,” said Larry Sly of the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano.

The Food Bank is happy to work more closely with health care providers as the trend of doctors “prescribing” fruits and vegetables increases. Together we can combat costly, preventable diseases and improve the overall health and wellbeing of our society.

For more information regarding food distribution qualifications, visit foodbankccs.org or call 1-855-309-FOOD.

Take part in the 25th annual Letter Carrier’s Food Drive on May 13th

April 27, 2017 By Jenny

The Letter Carri

ers’ Food Drive is the largest one-day food drive in America. In the past 24 years, the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano has received over 4 million pounds of food from this annual event. To participate, simply leave a bag of nonperishable and nonbreakable groceries by your mailbox on Saturday, May 13 before your regular Saturday delivery time. That’s it! The letter carriers will pick up your donation as they deliver the mail.

The food collected helps fill empty tummies during the summer months when children are out of school without access to free meals.

Won’t you help us reach our goal of collecting 200,000 pounds of food this year to commemorate this 25th annual event?