Losing his job at the Wonder Bread factory in the late 80’s was tough. Like most people it put Lloyd Jones in a very uncomfortable position. How was this future San Francisco-Marin Food Bank employee going to adequately feed his two young sons, not to mention himself? Little did Lloyd know that he was about to strike up a long-lasting friendship. One that would not only help him get back on his feet, but that would change his whole outlook on life.

“Be kind to one another. You never know how far-reaching the effects will be.”

Listen to Lloyd tell his story in this “Perspectives” piece on KQED Radio. It’s a tale of hardship, dignity lost and recaptured, heartbreak, and ultimately the gift of knowing that people are much better off when we’re all watching out for each other.

Lloyd’s Story

Maybe you’ve thought about signing up for a volunteer shift at the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank but weren’t quite sure what to expect. If so, then allow San Francisco Chronicle Columnist Beth Spotswood to do the legwork for you! She popped in for an impromptu morning shift recently.

Read The San Francisco Chronicle’s Beth Spotwood’s column: “Finding the good in 23,000 pounds of produce”

 

It was the night before Thanksgiving, and the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank was in desperate need of more turkeys to help provide traditional holiday meals at over 70 of our partner agencies. Executive Director Paul Ash made a public appeal while appearing on KGO Radio’s Chip Franklin Show.

If you’ve been fretting your overdue book fine at the Larkspur Library, never fear.  Library Circulation Supervisor Drew Bendickson instituted the facility’s first-ever Food For Fines program.  Drop off donated food anytime between now and the end of the year, and you’ll have your fine erased.  All the food collected will then be donated to the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank.

Read The Marin Independent Journal: “Larkspur Library launches ‘Food for Fines’ program”

And listen to KCBS Radio Reporter Jeffrey Schaub below.

 

Hundreds of local Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts ventured out into their neighborhoods the weekend before Thanksgiving to collect donated food as part of the Annual Scouting For Food event.  More than 30,000 pounds of donated non-perishables were raised this year.  Not bad considering much of the drive took place in a pretty serious rain storm.

Read the Marin Independent Journal: Marin Cub and Boy Scouts help food bank reach collection goal for holiday season

Or hear KCBS Reporter Jenna Lane’s story below.

 

In April 2013, Leo O’Farrell, director of the CalFresh food-stamp program in San Francisco, received a note from Trent Rhorer, the city’s executive director of human services. It was about a deal Rhorer had just struck with Code for America, a civic-tech nonprofit that places young experts with local and state governments. In return for a $255,000 fee, the city would get 15-month commitments from fellows, as they’re called, drawn from Code for America’s ranks of engineers, designers and product managers. Their job would be to create, according to the language of the contract, a “web-based technology solution to increase the ability of the lowest-income San Franciscans to access public benefits.” Rhorer knew that a young staff member in O’Farrell’s office, Tiana Wertheim, had distinguished herself working on these kinds of “digital delivery” projects; he wanted O’Farrell and Wertheim to meet with the fellows and see what they could come up with.

Click here to read more about GetCalFresh.org in the New York Times Magazine.

 

Jerry Kennelly strode into the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank Monday afternoon with dozens of employees from Riverbed Technology, a San Francisco software company, in tow.

The employees took over a back room at the food bank to volunteer as the nonprofit kicked off its latest fundraising effort, #HackHunger, to raise half a million dollars from local technology companies.
“We’re killing it,” Kennelly, the CEO of the technology company, said, as he divvied up canned food into different bins alongside his employees.  As they handled peanut butter and pasta and cereal, the tech employees took on determined looks as Stevie Wonder blasted from a nearby radio.

Click HERE to read more about #HackHunger in the San Francisco Chronicle

BRIGHT ORANGE CARROTS, fuzzy ripe peaches and heads of cabbage the size of bowling balls. Not the kind of fare you might expect to see at a typical food bank, but then again, the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank is far from typical. At the forefront of a movement to bring more fresh produce to people in need, the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank was one of the first nonprofits in the nation to venture out into one of the nation’s most fertile landscapes — California’s farming community — and forge real partnerships. Because of that outreach in the 1990s, the California Association of Food Banks’ Farm to Family program was born, and now an astounding 60 percent of the food from the San Francisco-Marin bank is made up of fresh fruits and vegetables.

Click here to visit this photo essay at Marin Magazine.

 

Whenever I hear about the number of folks who experience some kind of food insecurity, I’m always surprised. It’s especially alarming to learn just how many people in an affluent county like Marin don’t have enough to eat. The San Francisco-Marin Food Bank supports 250 food pantries, and 47 of them are here in Marin.

Since its merger five years ago, the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank has distributed six million pounds of food a year in the county. With a warehouse in Novato, 14-15 full-time staff members and hundreds of volunteers, the nonprofit has grown from 18 pantry locations to nearly 50.

Sixteen Marin-based grocery stores partner with the SF-Food Bank’s Fresh Rescue program in which trucks pick up the retailers’ excess food supply (six days a week) and distribute it to pantries located throughout the county. In addition, surplus food from the San Francisco warehouse augments Marin’s supplies, and is then retrieved by volunteers (who individually manage their pantries) and distribute in their communities as needed.

“We are trying to think creatively about ways to reach the underserved,” explains Senior Program Coordinator Irene Garcia, who points to regions in West Marin and those who “anchor out” on boats on Richardson Bay as hard to reach.

The SF-Food Bank rolled out a “mobile pantries” program this past July in the city in an attempt to penetrate underserved regions. Though not yet an official program, perhaps this model might be an effective way to reach those in unincorporated and more remote regions of our county.

Fresh produce makes up two-thirds of the food in the pantries, but with the holidays approaching there are typically special items donated like whole chickens, cranberry sauce and green beans. Garcia says they are already gearing up for Thanksgiving and typically get the special offerings into pantries the week before the holiday.

Looking for ways to help or give this season? Learn more at sfmfoodbank.org.

San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, Marin warehouse, 75 Digital Drive, Novato; 415/883-1302.

Article originally published by Pacific Sun, October 26th, 2016
Written by Tanya Henry

View the original article here.

 

My teenage students weren’t enthusiastic as we battled morning traffic. They were happy to skip class but this food bank volunteering thing had gotten old.

Their attitude: People are hungry. Yeah. Why do we have to fix it?

Our first stint had been such fun. In the cavernous, chilly warehouse mountains of donated food waited to be sorted. For three hours we pawed through an astonishing array of cans, boxes and jars. Cereal got tossed into one bin, beans over there. Kids ran around with armfuls of groceries, skidding up to pallets to dump their loads. The crazy stuff people contributed — rhododendron tea, chili-pomegranate jelly, a half-eaten box of Oreos. It was a treasure hunt.

But ever since then we had been bagging rice; week after week, measuring exactly 16 ounces into each plastic bag, slapping on cooking instructions. The glee of ditching class faded to weary resignation. Even clowning around in our hair nets and latex gloves got old. Boring, uninspiring work.

But on this morning it changed.

“What’s so special about 16 ounces of rice,” my student Evan whined.

I explained: It’s dinner for a family of four. The label says how to cook it to taste good. A hot meal to end the day.

The kids looked stunned. This is dinner?

I nodded, “Yes, if you’re hungry.”

There was a little silence.

Evan piped up again. He’d done seven bags, dinners for a week. A second boy yelled when he hit 30 bags, dinners for a month. For the rest of the morning, they raced to meet a goal that had become urgent to them. If we could fill 365 bags by noon, we’d have fed a family for a year. They flew through the work.

They walked out of the food bank proud to be helping the 20% of our neighbors who don’t have enough to eat.

In the end, my students asked to volunteer again.

Also, to learn to cook rice.

With a Perspective, this is Marilyn Englander.

Marilyn Englander is an educator and writer who founded REAL School Marin.

Article/Audio Recording was originally published on KQED’s website on October 25th, 2016
Produced by Mark Trautwein

View the original article here.