Seven months into the coronavirus pandemic, there is still no letup in demand for food assistance.
“We are now serving twice as many people as we were serving pre-pandemic,” said Leslie Bacho, CEO of the Second Harvest Food Bank, which serves San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. “We are serving a half million people across both counties.”
At its Tuesday meeting, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors is expected to allocate $2 million of funding from the CARES Act to the food bank.
“This $2 million are going to help cover the increased costs brought on by having to serve so many more people during this pandemic,” said Bacho. The bulk of the money will go towards purchasing food. “Now we are having to purchase about 33% of our food, and our monthly budget is usually around $7 million.”
Not only is the food bank short on supply, but also volunteers to help distribute it.
“Many of these sites have been having to function without about half as many volunteers as they need, just because I think as people are getting back to work and kids are going back to school, we’ve been seeing a lot of softness in our volunteer response,” she explained.
Santa Clara County and city of San Jose are expected to assign public employees to help staff food distribution sites.