San Francisco Food Bank’s One Big Table

By Lisa Moresco

June 2, 2008

“Food is our common ground, a universal experience.”
– Legendary Chef, James Beard

The devastating experience of hunger, not so much, but 150,000 of our fellow residents endure the frightening encounter of deficient and inadequate nourishment yearly. In a setting as prestigious as San Francisco, children, families and seniors are now placing higher demands on our church and community soup kitchens and food pantries. San Francisco agencies and non-profits are challenged by the necessity to increase services to the homeless; it is evident that they need to increase their aid to serve another tier of poverty, housed but living in hunger.

The San Francisco Food Bank (SFFB), a member of a citywide Food Security Task Force, has been battling hunger by relying on monumental volunteer efforts and partnering with non-profit community organizations and places of worship to provide free food resources for over twenty years. Their efforts don’t end there. SFFB also advocates on local, state and federal levels. Locally, their efforts last year include supporting AB 1382, introduced by Assemblyman Mark Leno, to remove finger imaging requirements for Food Stamp and CalWORKS participants. At the federal level, SFFB worked hard to oppose the Bush administration’s cuts and caps on Food Stamps, WIC, and other federal nutrition programs.

SFFB maintains a strong legislative agenda and encourages a participatory public through an advocacy alert program and a myriad of volunteer opportunities. The Food Bank also educates the public. Take a close look at the near-starvation experience as it exists in San Francisco. SFFB’s website simulates, through an interactive role-playing link called Hunger 101, the somber experience of life threatened with hunger. Follow a resident typically taking 2-3 visits to the food stamp office to fill out a 9-page application for $42 of weekly food stamps, or a family finding a local food pantry closed. SFFB reports that one in four San Franciscan children are seriously under-nourished and the elderly at risk for exacerbated health problems despite twenty nine million pounds of their food distributed yearly.

SFFB’s annual fundraiser One Big Table will be held Monday, June 9, 2008 at the Grand Café where an individual ticket will provide more than 400 meals for those in need.

I spoke with Alison Thoreau, Honorary Chair of this year’s benefit dinner and silent auction.

Alison Thoreau, Hononary Chair SFFB’s One Big Table
with her husband, Lou Vasquez.

FCJ: Back in December 2007 it was reported that food donations to the Bank were down 15% due to a nationwide shortage in food supplied by the US Department of Agriculture. What attributed to the drop?

AT: Unfortunately, there has been more than a 60% drop in donations coming from the USDA over the past four years, in the form of commodities such as rice, beans, pasta cheese, due to the steep increase in the cost of food. The good news is that 1) the recently passed Farm Bill will increase the USDA’s annual budget from $141 million per year for the country to $250 million per year, to be adjusted for inflation and 2) the Food Bank has been able to offset this shortage by the huge increase in fresh produce obtained from CA farmers (11 million pounds this year), thanks to Board Member Gary Maxworthy’s Farm to Family network.

FCJ: Once the donations are in, how does the Bank distribute the food?

AT: The Food Bank distributes food to low-income families, individuals and more through 500 local nonprofit agencies, from senior centers and after-school programs to soup kitchens and churches. We also partner with 180 weekly food pantries that serve approximately 16,000 households every week. These pantries distribute an average of 25 pounds of non-perishable groceries, fresh produce, bread, dairy products, and meat to households in need. (25 pounds is equivalent to 3 bags of groceries with dried beans, rice, spaghetti, tomato sauce, canned tuna, peanut butter, dried milk, cereal, beverages, assorted snacks, canned fruit and vegetables, and in-season produce like lettuce, oranges, carrots, apples, broccoli and peppers.)

FCJ: You were one of a small group of volunteers working the warehouse for SFFB and Project Open Hand twenty years ago. Today SFFB alone needs 68,000 volunteer hours yearly. Does the Bank fill the volunteer hours?

AT: Amazingly, yes. The Food Bank has an outstanding staff who coordinate with the corporate an community groups and individuals who are willing to donate their time, and who provide the direction to the volunteers so that multiple critical tasks, from sorting and packing food, participating at food drives and special events, to advocating for public policies that end hunger, are accomplished. Last year more than 12,000 volunteers contributed to the mission of ending hunger in San Francisco.

FCJ: From warehouse to honorary chair for SFFB’s fundraiser One Big Table, congratulations! I understand the event specifically targets the increased summer needs of SF low-income seniors and families.

AT: During the summer months the schools are closed, so many children do not have access to the school-based federally funded breakfast and lunch programs. Our goal is that the proceeds of One Big Table will provide more than 192,000 meals to low-income families and seniors, at our neighborhood food pantries.

FCJ: SFFB took over operation of the Commodity Supplemental Food Program in 2004. Why? Does it help you serve the needy more efficiently?

AT: The SFFB took over operation of this federal program in 2004 because the City was in danger of losing it, due to mismanagement by another agency. The Commodity Supplemental Food Program allows the Food Bank to complement the other food distribution strategies they employ. This program operates in over 40 locations in the City, providing USDA food to more than 10,000 low-income seniors, mothers and children per month, ensuring that older adults and families can get the staples they need for a healthy, complete, diet.

FCJ: Explain specifically how the Bank uses monetary donations?

AT: Over 97% of donated resources goes directly to food distribution programs that help feed senior citizens, children, working families, new immigrants and the homeless. Through economies of scale and a nationwide network of food growers and donors, the Food Bank turns each dollar donated into almost $9 worth of groceries, fresh produce, bread, dairy products and meat for the community.

FCJ: Certainly that is an incredible feat. In 2005 you worked on a US census. What were the most important findings?

AT: I helped collect information from the 400 agencies the SFFB served at that time, to contribute to a national study, Hunger in America 2006, conducted for America’s Second Harvest (A2H), the nation’s largest organization of emergency food providers.

For me, some of the more striking findings for me were that over 25% of the clients who need to come to one of our agencies for food assistance have to choose between paying for rent or utilities and paying for food and 40% of the households that need the emergency food providers have at least one adult employed. Hunger is felt in every neighborhood of the city.

San Francisco Food Bank June Fundraisers

One Big Table
Monday June 9
Grande Café
6 – 9 pm

Rockin’ Night of Music, Benefit for SF Food Bank
Saturday June 7
Brava Theatre
7:30 pm
www.rockfeeds.org

San Francisco Cooks for a Cause with Reylon Agustin of Jardiniere
Saturday June 14
California Culinary Academy
9am – 1pm

www.sffoodbank.org

FCJ Editor

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