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Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties is waiving its annual fee for partner agencies, the food bank announced this week.
Second Harvest, which provides food to more than 300 local organizations for the needy, has traditionally charged a membership fee to offset food-storage and transportation costs. The decision to cancel the fee is a response to the financial woes currently burdening most agencies providing “safety net” services, including food, during the economic recession, a Second Harvest press release stated.
Local agencies impacted by the fee waiver include Palo Alto Senior Housing Project’s Stevenson House, InnVision, the Palo Alto/Menlo Park Parents Club, the Ecumenical Hunger Project in East Palo Alto, the Palo Alto Family YMCA, the South Palo Alto Food Closet, and the East Palo Alto, Menlo Park and Mountain View senior centers.
Stevenson House provides affordable housing for around 130 Palo Alto low-income senior citizens and also offers a low-cost meal program. Executive Director Thomas Pamilla said the food-bank fee is based on the amount of food received and that in the past Stevenson House has paid around $500-1,000 yearly.
“We run the meal program at a deficit. Waiving the fee will reduce that deficit and allow us to improve the menu and have greater variety of food,” he said.
Although Second Harvest is suffering from the same financial crunch as its partners, waiving the fee is worth the sacrifice, Senior Director of Programs and Services Cindy McCown said.
“We do budget for this income, but many of our over 325 partner agencies are struggling to keep their doors open, and without them, we would not have been able to distribute over 39 million pounds of food last year and reach an average of over 207,000 people each month. With enough food and adequate nutrition, people can seek employment, put in a good day’s work or devote their undivided concentration to school work,” she said in the release.
I would like to hear from Second Harvest and its partners how the community can best help them in this difficult time. What do they need the most? Do they need more volunteers to help in their warehouses, more food donations, more monetary donations to fund their operations, more publicity?
When I tried to volunteer a few months ago, there were no opportunities to do so via web & volunteer coordination sites.
Also, can businesses make donation bins available year round or at least several times a year instead of just around the holidays? or is there not a problem with the quantity of food donated?
Right now the best way to support our mission of feeding those in need is by donating food or funds. Currently, Second Harvest is running the “Share Your Lunch” campaign which focuses on feeding children during the summer while school is out. For low-income families, the summer months can be especially difficult when free and reduced-price breakfast and lunch are not available.
Go to http://www.ShareYourLunch.net to make a donation, or to get more information about running your own food drive.
Food Drives can be run at ANY time of the year – please call our Donor Services hotline for more information: 1-866-234-FOOD (3663)
We are thrilled about the number of volunteers that have been turning out to help this year. Although we often reach our capacity at the warehouse, there are opportunities to join food distribution teams that distribute to families and seniors at off-site locations. Please see the following page for opportunities:
http://www.secondharvestfood.org/volunteer/opps_distribution.php
You can also contact Volunteer Services directly to find out about opportunities not related to warehouse food sorting:
http://www.secondharvestfood.org/volunteer/contact_vol.php
We are grateful to the support of our community – we couldn’t do it without you!
Learn more about the Food Bank at http://www.SecondHarvestFood.org
Thank you for the update on this important program.
Second Harvest is one of my favorite local charities.