Peanut butter, canned beef, shelf-stable milk, refried beans, and soup will make their way throughout the Santa Maria Valley by the truckload for distribution among several community nonprofits.
The national chapter of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints donated 80,000 pounds of nonperishable food and other items in order to help Santa Maria-area residents, local church communications director Ann Harris said.
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has an extensive welfare system of farms, canneries, and [it] produces a lot of food,” Harris said. “From time to time, they have an accumulation of surplus, and when that happens they distribute at the request of local church members.”
On July 12, two semitrucks full of food arrived from Salt Lake City to the Santa Maria church. Food was given to local nonprofits and churches—including the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, Good Samaritan Shelter, and Catholic Charities—to then be distributed among community members, Harris said.
“Nobody wants anyone to go hungry; we’re just making sure everyone in our community has food to eat,” she said. “People on fixed incomes are struggling, and I don’t think the need has ever been greater than it is right now.”
Foodbank of Santa Barbara County Senior Communications Manager Judith Smith-Meyer said that the organization saw a 30 percent increase in new people coming in for help because of rising costs.
“Increases in utilities, gas prices, and food prices are making it harder for more people than it’s typically hard for to put food on the table,” Smith-Meyer said.
The food bank’s average number of individuals served per month is 118,682, Smith-Meyer explained to the Sun via email. In May, the organization saw a spike of 150,000 people, each receiving an average of 95 pounds per visit—34 pounds of fresh produce, and 61 pounds of non-produce items.
“There’s a direct impact [on the food bank] in gas prices. We truck food between North and South County to make sure we have enough resources in place. We take them to distributions and deliver to community agencies,” she said. “Inflation is definitely affecting the food bank as well, but we are agile and experienced so we are adjusting to serve the community.”
The Foodbank of Santa Barbara County received more than 38,000 pounds of the Latter-day Saints donation—which will help provide the community with “volume and variety” in goods like detergents and shampoo, not just standard grocery items, Smith-Meyer said.
After picking up everything, the food bank will divide its items between its Santa Barbara and Santa Maria warehouses to make sure the teams are equipped to distribute further, Smith-Meyer said.
“We work with around 300 partners, programs and agencies [that] can place orders with the food bank through an online system with our inventory. The agencies can log into the system and request what they would like to pick up,” she added.
The partnership with the Church of Latter-day Saints is crucial to the food bank’s work, Smith-Meyer said.
“They [the church] are important because they help us serve more members of the community and a greater variety of needs than we normally would in the other channels in place,” Smith-Meyer said. “This partnership has dramatically increased the capacity to serve and the variety we are able to deliver.”
This article appears in Jul 14-21, 2022.
