Hunger Pains Bay Area

By Rachel Davidson

Food pantries in the Bay Area have a greater need for more volunteers, food and funding than ever before this year. According to the results of an Alameda County Community Food Bank study released last Thursday, the majority of local agencies are approaching capacity after continuing to serve a higher number of clients each year.

A Hunger Study performed in 2010 revealed that the food bank was feeding 49,000 clients per week, and that one out of six residents in Alameda County would turn to volunteer food services in any given year, accounting for about 250,000 people. 

According to the food bank's Communications Manager Michael Altfest, they have seen a dramatic increase in this need as they prepare the numbers for their next report.

"At the end of the day, hunger doesn't take a vacation," said Altfest, who is thankful for the influx of donations around the holidays, but wants to remind the public that these only last for so long.

The Homelessness Department of Santa Clara Community Action Programs understood that this need extends past the winter break and into the coldest months of the year. During Week 3, SCCAP collaborated with other on-campus offices to host the school's first ever Homelessness Awareness Week, which brought to light the issues that the Alameda study addressed.

In response to this study, senior Michelle Maddex said that SCCAP will continue their support for the homelessness programs most connected to the problems with local food banks. As the coordinator for the entire Homelessness Department, Maddex reminded students that "it's important that we, as educated and privileged people, use that to create opportunities and resources for others."

Local food pantries are using the information revealed by the study to call on their communities to advocate, donate and volunteer to support their neighbors and end hunger in 2013. One of the biggest challenges that these organizations face is the fact that their networks are almost entirely volunteer-run. According to the study, 61 percent of food pantries surveyed reported that they have no paid staff members.

Looming ahead are the March 1 budget cuts from the federal sequestration that would shrink unemployment benefits by nearly 10 percent, cut funds from public schools and severely diminish the state's Meals on Wheels program. 

This last element will directly impact SCCAP's most popular and well-attended homelessness program.

Project Open Hands uses Meals on Wheels to deliver food to the physically disabled who are unable to provide food for themselves. Junior Rosa Segura said that this program is especially important for students because the delivery takes place in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, which allows them to see the homelessness that's happening in their own backyards.

"On top of just seeing the social contrast, it's just seeing these people not as statistics or a number, but as a human being," said Segura, who is one of the Homelessness Department program coordinators. 

She added that losing this program wouldn't only be detrimental for the students involved, but for the people who rely on these weekly visits.

The Homelessness Department continues to volunteer past the chilliest months of the year with SWAP for Good in the Spring, a collaboration with The Office for Sustainability that gathers donated clothes from students and gives them to the various programs that they work with. SCCAP is currently deciding whether they will move this or have similar programs during fall and winter quarters as well.

Maddex said that her team will be sharing the news of this study with their volunteers and "urge them to stay involved and be aware of the challenges that are being faced by the clients we are serving."

SCCAP sees their greatest number of volunteers early on in the quarter, but regardless of how busy college life can get, there is always a greater need waiting to be served just outside of our campus.

Contact Rachel Davidson at rldavidson@scu.edu.