Pajaro Valley Schools Run Out Of Holiday Food Boxes

District Recomends People Visit Second Harvest Food Bank Distribution on Wednesday

By Jondi Gumz

On Tuesday, when the Pajaro Valley Unified School District prepared a special holiday food box in advance of Thanksgiving with tortillas and chicken for families in need, long lines formed at the distribution sites and nearly all the sites ran out.

“There’s a huge need,” said Alicia Jimenez, the school district’s public information officer.

She said the turnout at the food distribution sites was 40 percent higher than usual.

“As we plan for Christmas, we will take this into account,” she said.

For the families who did not get the holiday box of food, she said Second Harvest Food Bank is doing a special food distribution at the county fairgrounds in Watsonville from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 25.

Ordinarily, the food bank hands out food on Fridays, so this was rescheduled because of the Thanksgiving holiday.

Jimenez said the CARES Act provided funding to the Community Action Board and Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust to help families that must be spent by Dec. 31. And the state Department of Social Services provided and electronic benefits card for families, providing $345 per child, for which 15,000 families qualified, she added.

Many families in the Pajaro Valley have jobs in ag, which typically downsizes during the winter, but this year the ag workforce is smaller due to COVID-19.

As of mid-October, there were 3,500 farm jobs in Santa Cruz County, down from 10,200 a year ago.

www.thefoodbank.org