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Managing the JFS Food Pantry in a Crisis BY JACQUELINE BULL
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om Stewart is the program coordinator of the “Hand Up” Food Pantry for Jewish Family Service. He starts his day early in the morning in the warehouse. His first task is to lay out the packed food from the day before into the working space to start to prep. Then he and his team start to assemble the packages that get delivered to home-bound seniors and the drive-thru clients. Fresh produce is added to the prepared boxes of non-perishables. Between 8:30 and 9, the volunteer drivers arrive. They double-check all the routes, help them load the packages into their vehicles, resolve any questions and send them on their way. By 10, the drive-thru service starts. Cars pull up and provide some basic information, pop their trunk and the JFS team puts the bags in their trunk and they’re on their way. Then with the help of volunteers, they pack the non-perishable packages for the next day and sort through the donated produce. Then the JFS staff commences their fresh rescue efforts. Von’s, Target and Ralph’s donate items like dairy, fresh produce, bread for staff to pick up, bring back to the warehouse and sort. And the next day he gets up early and does it all over again. “At the food pantry we were used to serving about 300 families a month through our corner market-where clients were coming in shopping for themselves-and we were handling about 45,000 lbs of food. Where now we’re delivering to over 300 clients everyday plus serving 150-200 clients through our drive-thru every day. And just like last month, I did a quick calculation and we processed 165,000 pounds of food, so it’s three times the amount of food being processed through our warehouse,” Tom said. They even added a second shift in the kitchen to make prepared meals for their seniors. Before the pandemic, they were mak28 SDJewishJournal.com | August 2020
ing 600 to 800 meals a day. Now they are making 1,600. “Just the sheer volume of clients that we’re trying to respond to is almost a weekly battle of balancing ‘Am I going to have enough food to have the drive-thru operate and deliver nutritious food?’” Tom said. “It used to be a few people at a time and now we’re seeing 100 cars come through every single day ... and what’s remarkable is there is a good number of those that are new to JFS. And I would say that that speaks to the impact of the pandemic. People who are only for the first time facing this type of need–especially when it comes to food insecurity and this helps offset the cost to pay the rent, to pay the utilities,” Carole Yellen, director of strategic partnerships, said. FS has historically been responsive to crises that have happened in our community whether the fires or the Chabad of Poway shooting, so when this first began I think we were able to flex that same muscle to respond to the COVID-19 crisis,” Carole said. She explained that every crisis is accompanied by a level of uncertainty especially as it relates to the time frame. At month four, they feel they are able to sustain some of the services that they’ve expanded to meet the need while keeping an eye towards recovery. “Things that we’ve learned from the great recession in San Diego was that there was a crisis period with urgent critical need and then there was a long recovery period. What is unique about the COVID-19 crisis is that we recognize that we may fluctuate between the two … We are trying to figure out how to sustain the increase in our nutrition services more long term. ” she said Keeping the long-term needs in consideration also meant shuffling staff that were redeployed as they were all hands on deck in the beginning. She recalled they had par-
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enting educators cooking in the kitchen, the warehouse had staff from all over JFS and she herself even took some shifts as a driver. One of the downsides of not feeling of being in an active crisis mode is the perception that the need is diminishing. “The community in many ways is seeing an attempt to reopen-and potentially we’re shutting some things down again-but it is giving a false sense that our community is not in need anymore. For instance with safe parking, we have a generous community who provides meals for the safe parking participants each night. And as the community started to reopen, we saw a slight decrease in the amount of donations we were receiving for those dinners. The reality is for many people like those who are living in their vehicles in our safe parking program the need for food existed before COVID-19 and it was just exacerbated while this has been going on, but that need is going to continue. For many of our low-income seniors they were food insecure before COVID-19 and they will remain food insecure ... We just know that especially for our most vulnerable populations of older adults and homeless individuals and families, it is really crucial that we maintain services for them and making sure that our community hears there is still a way for them to participate and contribute to the critical work that will be going on that I would say for months if not years,” she said. Before Tom was program coordinator of the pantry, he was a volunteer and before that he was a retail pharmacist for 20 years, “I moved to San Diego and needed to take a break from that professional life and just wanted to throw myself into volunteering and see what was next. I was thinking about going back to school continuing in a helping field, but in a more hands-on social services type of way. And JFS was one the first places