by Maureen McNair
​Thanks so to hundreds of individual donors, our South Bay Food Pantry will continue operating in a new space once in-person services resume at our Chula Vista campus. 
We are not moving far, either. We are staying in the same strip mall as the worship space and social hall. In fact, we will be moving into the suite adjacent to the social hall. So, our South Bay church is expanding its footprint. 

by Maureen McNair
​One of the things weighing on my mind as I planned the food distribution for last week was whether or not the food pantry would end up with more perishable food than we could distribute. We had over 1,800 pounds of fresh potatoes, apples, and tomatoes, a few hundred pounds of food from Starbucks, and about 400 pounds of bread. On any given Saturday, we can easily distribute that much perishable food along with many hundreds of pounds of frozen meat and dry goods. 

By Maureen McNair
​Feeding San Diego recently gifted our food pantry with over 2,800 pounds of watermelons. Our pantry clients were thrilled to receive such a classic summer fruit. 
Our volunteers worked too hard for words! I am calling out Steve Gelb here, with gratitude. Steve rode his bike from Mission Valley to Chula Vista, lifted many melons, then rode his bike back home!

By Maureen McNair
​The City of Chula Vista honored the pantry with a public service award during this first full year of operations. Here is what some of our amazing volunteers accomplished during the Covid-19 pandemic. 
The South Bay Food Pantry continues to squat in the three suites that comprise the Chula Vista campus which has been closed to other uses during the pandemic. A team of over 50 volunteers have distributed over 300,000 pounds of free food and over 33,550 free diapers.

by Maureen McNair
​While our church, communities, and State have been closed down for most of the last 14 months, the volunteers at our South Bay Food Pantry have lived our values, created beloved community, and established an institution. Our food pantry is the future of our congregational life. The fact that our food pantry is our future became quite clear to me during the two weeks I was taking a stay-cation. I cannot wait for those of you who have never visited us to see what we have created. It will knock your socks off!

by Nina Douglass
Jeff and I are excited to join other South Bay Food Pantry volunteers in covering Maureen McNair’s much-deserved staycation from the pantry. 
Have you visited the pantry on a Saturday morning during distribution? it’s impossible to distinguish shoppers from volunteers. In fact, some shoppers choose  to volunteer, and some offer small donations to express their appreciation. Some volunteers and workers in the strip mall are also shoppers, along with others.

By Maureen McNair
​Several months ago, Rev. Kathleen Owens asked me what the process was I used to run the food pantry. I told her it has been like laying down the tracks while the train is coming. So, after 17 straight months of creating and operating the food pantry, I am taking a vacation the last two weeks in May. I have planned a stay-cation. 
The food pantry, diaper distribution, congregant food delivery, and feeding people experiencing homelessness will continue thanks to spouses Nina Douglass and Jeff Kline, who have agreed to substitute for me. Many of you may not have met them because they joined our church during the pandemic.

by Maureen McNair
​Saturday pantry volunteers are likely to observe that I live in fear of excess produce. It is perishable and, while the pantry has some refrigeration space, we do not have sufficient refrigeration space to store very much fresh produce for a week. We want food to go into the community right away, not into landfills. 

By Maureen McNair
McNair
Our homeless outreach program began by complete accident. To make a long story short, for the last few weekends, we have been providing food to between 80 - 120 people experiencing homelessness. Here is how this part of our pantry story started.
Regular blog readers might recall that an anonymous opera singer donated over 2,000 pounds of food to us which he collected through a food drive. It turns out that a noticeable amount of that food was suitable to distribute to people who are experiencing homelessness.

By Maureen McNair
Twelve hundred cars drove through the North Island Credit Union Amphitheater to receive free food the last day of March. The Amphitheater, located off Hwy 805 and Main Street in Chula Vista, was the sight of the first of two massive food distributions Feeding San Diego is holding in Chula Vista. The next one is tomorrow.

By Maureen McNair
Not long ago, I received an email from someone identifying himself only as an opera singer. The opera singer was offering to donate 85 pounds of food to the pantry from a food drive. Could I drive into San Diego to pick it up?
​I agree to pick up the donation, but since I did not know the donor, I asked another pantry volunteer to come with me. So one Saturday after a long day of preparing for the food distribution and handing out food, we drove to our meeting place.

By Maureen McNair
​Every Saturday morning around 8:30 AM, a dedicated group of young adults start drifting into the pantry.  
For nearly a year now, Elias Malouf, the first young adult to volunteer at the pantry, has come in to set up tables and start bagging fresh produce. He stays for an hour, then leaves for a martial arts class.

By Maureen McNair
Before we started the South Bay Food Pantry, I really never gave any thought to the difference between a pantry and a bank. But, the distinction is so important that, for instance, the Regional Diaper Bank prohibits us by written contract from calling ourselves a diaper bank. We can use other names, such as a diaper pantry or a diaper distribution, but not the word “bank."

By Maureen McNair
​A year ago this last Sunday in February, some pantry volunteers shared with the congregants at the Hillcrest campus that our South Bay campus was opening a food pantry. I spent six hours on the Hillcrest campus that day talking to 17 additional people who wanted to volunteer. About two weeks later, the governor issued the first stay at home order because of the covid-19 virus. All the volunteers eventually quit except one.

By Maureen McNair
Have you been looking for a way to volunteer for the South Bay Food Pantry without working inside the pantry or at the food distribution itself? We are looking for a few drivers to join our team of food delivery volunteers. We have a few church families to whom we deliver food every Saturday. We are looking to expand our team of drivers who would pick up boxed or bagged food at the pantry them deliver it to homes. Volunteers only work the Saturdays for which it is convenient for them. Pick up and delivery time is a bit flexible.

By Maureen McNair
​​Our hard working volunteers handed out food for over 3,300 individuals last month at our southwestern Chula Vista pantry. Our main pantry clients are families and individuals. 
I wanted to start our pantry in the 91911 zip code because I knew they community needed more food. We do have clients come from outside the neighborhood, but we are filling a void in a location where there simply has not been enough food flowing into the community.

By Maureen McNair
​​I Love to Glean is a start up, non-profit food bank located in Chula Vista less than two miles from our South Bay Food Pantry. I am thrilled to share with you that I Love to Glean is also the recipient of the Sunday generosity offerings for February and March.
I Love to Glean is the brainchild of Karen Clay, a visionary and activist who currently lives in Imperial Beach. Karen is a retired event organizer. South Bay Food Pantry volunteers recognize her behind her mask when they see her long gray hair and ancient red pick up truck. ​
Karen created this non-profit food bank to rescue the tons of edible food currently going to landfills. I Love to Glean does not distribute rescued food directly to individuals. Instead, they provide that food to pantries, and pantries distribute the food to people experiencing food insecurity. Currently, Karen works with about three dozen pantries. 
Karen’s idea is brilliant and one whose time has come. ​

By Maureen McNair
​Food pantries across San Diego County, including ours, face several months of food shortages. The US Department of Agriculture farm to family program from which our South Bay Food Pantry has received many tons of food, has largely cut SD County out of federally funded food distribution contracts that cover the next several months. Our South Bay Food Pantry will be relying on food from the Jacobs and Cushman San Diego  Food Bank and Feeding San Diego. However, both food banks limit the amount of food we can get from them. Feeding San Diego currently allows us food from their warehouse only two days a month. We shop weekly at the San Diego Food Bank warehouse, but our credit limit restricts the amount of food we can purchase there.

By Maureen McNair 
Less than two miles from our South Bay Food Pantry in Chula Vista, UC San Diego Medical School is conducting a Covid-19 prevention study to evaluate a vaccine. Pantry volunteer Jude Outwater, a senior at Lesley University in Boston and son of Board Vice President Julie Forrest, organized a visit by a representative from the Medical School to recruit study volunteers. Medical School Community Outreach Specialist Aaron Gutierrez spoke to Pantry clients and volunteers to find adults, aged 18 and older, who are more likely to be exposed to Covid-19 and who might be interested in participating in the study, which does provide compensation. 

By Maureen McNair 
For the first time since the food pantry opened, Lead Minister Rev. Kathleen Owens had her Saturday morning schedule freed up enough that she visited a food distribution. Kathleen did more than visit, though, she worked helping unload a delivery of food donated by Starbucks.  There is nothing quite like repeatedly carrying 30 pound boxes of food across the parking lot to put into the cars of our pantry guests to drive home how labor intensive and physically exhausting pantry work can be. Kathleen is definitely up to the task!  Rev. Kathleen also got to talk with regular volunteer, retired Rev. Arvid Straube, and some pantry volunteers that she knows because they are congregants. She also got to meet some, not all, of our volunteers from the wider community.