It sounds like an investor’s dream come true: Take one dollar and turn it into ten dollars worth of products and services. This is the miracle that’s performed daily by food banks, large and small, throughout Northern California. From San Francisco to Lake Tahoe, a network of dedicated professionals, aided by thousands of community volunteers, ensures that the neediest do not fall through the cracks. They do this by partnering with local charities and leveraging limited resources to maximize the quantity and quality of food and services they provide.
Northern California food banks, though diverse, face common realities. In an increasingly challenging economy, there is greater competition for the same pool of donations. The client base is increasingly concentrated among the working poor – minimum wage earners who cannot afford basic necessities in a high-rent region. “These aren’t people on the streets,” says Mike Sproull, director of the El Dorado County Food Bank (FoodBankedc.org). “These are your neighbors, people you go to church with, friends.”
The numbers are staggering. Last year, the San Francisco Food Bank (SFFoodBank.org) distributed 28 million pounds of food to more than 124,000 people. In rural El Dorado County, more than 10,000 people a month receive their meals through the food bank. Sacramento annually provides $25 million worth of products and services to those in need. According to the Urban Institute and Research Center, one out of 10 California families will use an emergency food bank at least once this year.
Whether through canned food drives in the workplace or direct appeals aimed at those making year-end tax decisions, most of us become aware of food banks and the needs of the hungry around the holidays. We sit down to our Thanksgiving feasts complacent with the knowledge that we’ve dropped off our cans of condensed milk. The needy will not go hungry this holiday season. But what happens on January 2? April 2? July 2? “People are hungry 365 days of the year,” says Jeff Gillenkirk, head of media relations for the San Francisco Food Bank. “If donors give us cash, those funds can be used throughout the entire year.”
The food bank stories are as varied as the geographic regions they serve and El Dorado County’s reads like a morality tale. Spoiled rich kid Mike Sproull, a third-generation resident of this sprawling county, was driven to build his agency, now the largest charity in the area, by his father’s dying wish. “My dad had everything he could ever want,” says Sproull, “but at the end of his life, he wanted to give back. I think he also wanted,” Sproull chuckles, “to put his wayward son on the right track.”
Through partnerships with more than 40 local charities including soup kitchens, emergency food closets, senior centers and programs for low-income children and pregnant women, Sproull has built a grassroots organization with four paid staff and hundreds of community volunteers that distributes food to the needy in El Dorado and Alpine Counties, including the South Lake Tahoe area where hotel and casino workers can barely afford the area’s steep rents. Food bank sponsors include chambers of commerce, Realtors, wineries, and supermarkets. The Food Bank of El Dorado County will hold its first Walk for Hunger benefit, a memorial for former board member Leo Albusche, on November 10 in El Dorado Hills Town Center.
In urban San Francisco, where the median price of a house is $757,000, the food bank serves a melting pot of languages and cultures. Supported by a staff of 70 and a volunteer corps numbering in the thousands, the San Francisco Food Bank opens its cavernous warehouse to service organizations such as St. Anthony’s and Glide Memorial Church. It also delivers fresh produce, breads, and meat to more than 170 neighborhood food pantries where people can select their food in a farmer’s market style, and it partners with local corporate sponsors such as Macy’s and the 49ers to fight hunger. “We’re always in overdrive to get food and funds to service a population that needs us more and more,” says Gillenkirk. The food bank will receive a portion of the proceeds from the San Francisco Run/Walk for the Hungry on November 18.
There are about 40 food banks that belong to the California Association of Food Banks (CAFoodBanks.org), and many are also part of America’s Second Harvest (SecondHarvest.org), which operates at the national level. Both associations engage in advocacy on behalf of food banks, striving to make their programs accessible to more people.
Serving More Than Food
One food bank that you won’t find on either association’s roster is Sacramento’s. This is not an oversight. Now called Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services (SFBS.org), the charity that Father Dan Madigan started some 20 years ago opted to go a different route. Shunning government involvement, the privately funded charity offers programs that others cannot. “We’re not a typical food bank,” boasts executive director Blake Young. “I know of no other food bank doing the kinds of programs that we do.”
Among those programs is a clothes closet that distributes almost 500,000 articles of clothing each year at no charge; a community learning center that provides one-on-one instruction to adults in reading, writing, math, and other subjects; a transitional living program for families with children; a program that provides therapy through art for abused women; and the Intel Computer Clubhouse that teaches computer skills to children and teens.
The agency works hard to cultivate support across all sectors of the community, partnering with more than 250 local businesses for its “Spirit of Giving” food drives and involving local students in all aspects of its activities. “If you teach kids that public service is important,” says Young, “they see that they have a lot to be thankful for. They talk to their parents about it.” The entire community will turn out on Thanksgiving Day for the Sacramento Food Bank’s 14th annual Run to Feed the Hungry benefit.
More than 20,000 participants are expected to raise upwards of half a million dollars for the agency. That translates into more than $5 million for the needy – not a shabby return on investment.
The food bank agencies throughout Northern California carry out their missions through the generosity of thousands of volunteers.
The Napa Valley Food Bank (canv.org/napa_valley_food_banks/), located in the City of Napa, services a small but vulnerable client base that stretches from Calistoga in the north to American Canyon in the south. Operating on a much smaller scale than its urban counterparts, the agency – which employs two full-time and five part-time staff – distributes more than one and a half million pounds of food a year. The need is more seasonal than in other regions, according to executive director Shirley King. “This is a tourism-driven economy,” King says, “so we see a much higher level of need in the winter time, when the service and winery workers are idle.” The Vintners Association funds a local clinic through the annual Napa Valley Wine Auction; support for the food bank is on a winery-by-winery basis. The community supports the food bank, as well as several other aid programs, through “Hands Across the Valley,” a fundraiser that is held annually in early September.
