Solving Hunger Neighborhood by Neighborhood

By Zach Friend, Santa Cruz County Supervisor 2nd District

On any given day, as many as one in four local children will wonder whether their home will have enough food to feed them or where their next meal will come from. And when food is available, many families faced with increasing rents and high costs of living stretch their dollars with inexpensive food that is high in calories and low in nutrition.

No area of the county is immune to this reality, and it’s not just children that struggle with food insecurity or hunger.

Just imagine living with food insecurity — not knowing where your next meal will come from or whether it will be large enough or healthy enough to be optimal. Many families experience exactly this, even against the backdrop of living in one of the most beautiful (and prosperous) regions in the country.

This is where the Second Harvest Food Bank comes in and the neighborhood by neighborhood work in our district being done to help address these issues. Local neighborhood, school and community organizations have taken the lead to provide food for those in need.

One of the largest is Twin Lakes Church, which (from the creativity of its members) has raised funds and food for Second Harvest. Last year, through their World’s Largest Garage Sale, Twin Lakes was able to provide over 836,000 meals to local families in need.

Rio Del Mar Elementary has also been a leader in providing meals even encouraging kids to scour their homes for loose change. Through the work of couch cushions, car seats, and piggy banks (and partnerships with local businesses matching at a 2-1 rate) the school raised over 50,000 meals last year.

Local schools are a great location to hold this type of outreach. In partnership with the Santa Cruz County Office of Education, Second Harvest supplements many of the local school free breakfast programs with healthy, reliable food options and nutritional education programs.

In fact, the Second Harvest nutrition program has grown to over 100 sites over the last 20 years, providing over a million healthy meals a year to an average of 7,000 children each month. Second Harvest couples this with over 600 nutritional education classes for families to promote healthier eating habits at home. Of the families that have participated in the program, over 90 percent are eating more fresh fruits and vegetables and have improved their eating habits overall.

But there is more that can be done. We can all agree that no one should go hungry in our community.

Now it’s our turn to be creative – to organize our neighborhoods and community organizations to be part of the solution. The meals we are providing may very well be going to one of our neighbors.

As the holidays approach, let’s help Second Harvest give our community more confidence of where their next healthy meal will come from. 100 percent of the money collected for the Holiday Food Drive goes directly into programming, none of it goes into overhead. Call Second Harvest at (831) 722-7110 or visit thefoodbank.org to learn more about the program, participate or donate and to help them reach their goal of 4.5 million meals raised.

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As always, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please feel free to call me at 454-2200.