NONPROFIT
Second Harvest
Help for the hungry
Photos by James Carbone
Gregory K. Wilkinson, left, and Bill Carnegie at Second Harvest Food Bank
Written by Amy Bentley
H
unger: it’s “hard to see and easy to overlook.” That’s what Gregory K. Wilkinson, board chairman at the Second Harvest Food Bank, says about an issue that affects many people who live in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. “[The region has] about one out of six families and one out of every four children who are food insecure, which means they don’t know where their next meal is coming from,” he said. “Those are the highest percentages after Fresno, so we’ve got a big job.”
Maria Pina selects fresh strawberries at Second Harvest Food Bank in Riverside.
And it’s the size of the task that motivates the attorney with Best Best & Krieger to stay involved with the Riverside-based nonprofit, which serves 425,000 people in the two-county area every month. Established in 1980, the food bank acts as a wholesaler and distributes about 28 million pounds of donated food each year to 440 charities. Second Harvest employees collect food donated by large warehouse facilities and transport it to a Riverside warehouse, where volunteers inspect and sort the donations, then get them ready for the charities to pick up. Going forward, Bill Carnegie, the president and CEO of Second Harvest, says the organization is pursuing initiatives to do even more — raise more funds, serve more people, expand and start new programs. They include: • Boosting annual food distribution to 50 million pounds. • Establishing a “kids farmers market” at a Riverside school near the Second Harvest warehouse on Jefferson Street where fresh produce would be given to students one Friday each month. Second Harvest has received $10,000 in funding from the Carmax Foundation to launch a pilot project, and Carnegie says that teachers, volunteers or the PTA could bag the goodies. “It’s going to teach kids about eating healthy,” he added. “We know we are doing something really good with highly nutritious food.” • Reducing, then eventually eliminating, the current “shared-maintenance” system by which charity groups pay a small percent august-september 2014 | riversidethemag.com | 33