Regional Food Pantries Face Months of Shortages

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.

Pantry volunteers will be rescuing food from a few local retailers. Overall, however, the amount of food we push into the Chula Vista community has become more difficult to find and more expensive. Instead of giving every family about 50 pounds of food each week, we will be lucky to source 20 pounds of food to give them. I will be trying to find more hygiene products to distribute to help families defray those costs which should give them more funds to pay utility, medical, and rent bills.

​In addition, it will be more labor intensive to bag the food and hygiene we do find. If you and your family or small group would like to volunteer mid-week to put items in grocery bags before the Saturday morning distributions, please contact me. The best way to reach me is by email at memcnair948@gmail.com. 
As ever, the members and friends of this congregation continue to be enormously generous and supportive of our food distribution project. Thank you all so much for your continued interest and support.