Basic Needs

BY Jamie Menaker | photos BRENDA HARTSHORN
AND GREATER STOCKTON EMERGENCY FOOD BANK

With the economy in decline as it has been in recent times and so many jobs disappearing, the Greater Stockton Emergency Food Bank has seen a surge of new clients, with no sign of slowing anytime soon.

Driving past the Greater Stockton Emergency Food Bank during the hours the pantry is open, most would not be surprised to see a line that wraps around the building, filled with those seeking assistance with the most basic of needs, food. In fact, San Joaquin County was cited three years ago as the fourth worst county for hunger of fifty-eight counties in California.

What you may find curious, however, is the Mustangs and Lexuses mixed in with the salvaged vehicles parked outside the food bank, and the crisp work shirts alongside tattered or worn-out sweaters outfitting the patrons in line, each waiting patiently for the food that will keep themselves or their families stable for the next few weeks. With the economy in decline as it has been in recent times and so many jobs disappearing, the food bank has seen a surge of new clients, with no sign of slowing anytime soon.

The Greater Stockton Emergency Food Bank, founded in 1968, serves over one thousand families a week at the Stockton facility, and also acts as the hub of a network of other food pantries, mobile farmers markets, cooking demonstrations, and health and nutrition education all over San Joaquin County. In Stockton, anyone is welcome to use the food bank’s services with a valid form of identification; this serves to give some sense of accountability to the clients at the food bank, as well as keeps track of how often clients have visited—once every fourteen days is the limit. Each client waits in line, a few are let into the facility at once and checked in, and then each client is given a prepared bag of dry goods, ranging in size from an individual portion up to a supply for a family of five to eight. Dry goods can include canned food, cereal, rice, soup, granola bars, and more—anything that won’t spoil is fair game, but the food bank tries to keep the offerings as healthy as possible, handing out items like sweets and energy drinks sparingly. The client is also able to take home fresh produce and refrigerated items such as bread and milk from a second, adjacent warehouse facility. “We want to show people that it isn’t necessarily expensive to make healthy meals,” says Tim Viall, Executive Director of the Emergency Food Bank. 

This is an important lesson for a clientele where 95 percent either rent or own a home, and much of the food given out will be prepared for children and families. Although some of the food bank’s offerings, like rice, do require preparation, Viall reminds that no one in need is excluded.

“On any given day, people may be living in their cars, parks, or shelters,” he says. “They get food to take home, wherever home may be.” Both a shelter and a church kitchen offering meals twice a day to those in need are also located within a four block radius, for those the food bank can’t offer proper aid.

With the increasing need for hunger assistance in San Joaquin, the Emergency Food Bank has also risen to the occasion of creating programs to better serve its clientele. Viall is in his fifth year as head of the food bank, and, before that, served Stockton in his roles with the Stockton Chamber, the Stockton Downtown Alliance, and on the food bank’s Board of Directors. Since taking over as Executive Director, Viall has most notably helped to start the San Joaquin Hunger Task Force, an alliance of twenty-five local organizations.

“I’m jazzed that I was part of getting the hunger task force started three years ago,” says Viall. “We have made some great progress. It’s fun to be part of a group that is bigger than any of these twenty-five organizations alone.”

Since its inception, the Hunger Task Force has been able to secure a two-year, Healthy Eating, Active Living grant of almost $150,000 from Kaiser Permanente to support programs at the four major food banks in San Joaquin County—Greater Stockton Emergency Food Bank, Tracy Interfaith Ministries, the Salvation Army Lodi, and San Joaquin County Commodities. With this grant, the Emergency Food Bank was able to hire a full-time Food Developer, Yvonne Derby, working with all four food banks to secure new food donors. “Yvonne is going down the list of major food growers and producers. We’ve never had a staff big enough to be making calls like this,” explains Viall. Derby’s work has already paid off, and the Emergency Food Bank has secured the Del Monte packing plant in Modesto as a regular donor. Derby’s next goal is to solicit local trucking firms; truckers in town with partial loads that have been turned down at the grocers can bring the rest of their load to the Emergency Food Bank.

Other programs the Kaiser grant has accelerated are the Emergency Food Bank’s Mobile Farmers Market and Nutrition on the Move initiatives. With vans donated from the Stockton Record, the two Mobile Farmers Markets visit about thirty-five low income areas in San Joaquin County to distribute fresh fruit and produce, as well as educate clients about proper nutrition. Much of the time, a cooking demonstration alongside the mobile market will illustrate a recipe using whatever produce is being handed out that day.

“This is an idea happening all across the country,” says Viall. “The first step to getting people on their feet is getting them to know how to do things on their own.” With the help of nutrition educators from the University of California (UC) Extension program, Nutrition on the Move also encompasses classes taught at the Emergency Food Bank and other locations around San Joaquin designed to promote healthy eating, family food budgeting, planning meals with the food given out by the food banks, and active lifestyles.

The Emergency Food Bank is currently the number one food provider in San Joaquin, serving almost four million pounds of food each year from their main location and from about fourteen satellite pantries around the San Joaquin area. The Emergency Food Bank also supports school nutrition programs, local nutrition events, and over thirty non-profit organizations whenever they can. “We’ve had the view that our clients here and at the satellite pantries come first,” says Viall. “If there is more left over, we are happy to share, but our clients come first.”

This effort put into the community is returned to the Emergency Food Bank with just as much strength. Fifteen to seventeen volunteers a day, and even more during the holidays, are responsible for all the receiving, sorting, bagging, and distribution of the food bank’s supplies. Some of the most notable food donations of the year come from community events like TV network KRCA’s “Kids Can” food drive for the holiday season, facilitated entirely by the network and collected from schools all over San Joaquin County.

“We’ve really come a long way,” says Viall. “We were an agency that had trouble paying three people, and now we have eight people on our staff. We have 50 percent more clients, and 60 percent more food being handed out.” The Emergency Food Bank also publishes a quarterly Healthy Living newspaper, and facilitates numerous health and nutrition events around the Central Valley.

“Hopefully we will find self-sufficiency at some point, sponsors that will support us year-round, and donors that come in every month,” says Viall. “You can’t help but to stand outside [the food bank] and see that these people really need the help, and we really are helping them.” SJM

For more information, or to make a donation or volunteer your services, contact the Greater Stockton Emergency Food Bank, 7 W. Scotts Ave., Stockton, (209) 464-7369, www.stocktonfoodbank.org.