Bay Area food banks are seeing record need, while donations are down
Bay Area Food Banks are seeing record need, while donations are down
This holiday season, food banks say they're facing greater need than ever before. In Silicon Valley, they say 1 in 6 people are coming in for food assistance. In San Francisco, that number is 1 in 5. But the organizations say donations are not keeping up with demand.
SAN JOSE, Calif. - This holiday season, food banks say they're facing greater need than ever before. In Silicon Valley, they say 1 in 6 people are coming in for food assistance. In San Francisco, that number is 1 in 5. But the organizations say donations are not keeping up with demand.
For all the food banks, December is a big month. Both in terms of need, and in terms of fundraising. And they say what happens now will impact the entire year ahead.
High school junior Rabia Badar raised $4,200 for the Alameda County Food Bank.
"I wanted to help the food insecure during the holidays, so I started the virtual food drive," she says.
Her mother Seema Badar of Dublin adds, "It was really a community effort. We had neighbors, we had members from our mosque, we had people from her school."
And it's not just the Alameda County Food Bank that needs help right now. At Second Harvest of Silicon Valley, which serves Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, they're feeding a record number of people.
"The fact is, the need is the highest we've seen in our fifty years of serving the community. We are now serving a half million people every month, but the donations just aren't keeping up with the need," says Leslie Bacho, CEO of Second Harvest of Silicon Valley.
They attribute the rising need, in part, to inflation. But while there is pandemic era demand, pandemic era funding is a thing of the past.
"We've had to make compromises, like instead of providing a gallon of milk, providing a half gallon of milk. Instead of providing those items every week, alternating them," Bacho says.
In fact, many organizations are being forced to scale back. At the San Francisco Marin Food Bank, they're cutting their pop-up pantries.
"At the end of June 2025 we are needing to eliminate some programming. That means that some of our neighbors are going to lose services and that's a pretty big impact," says Chris Padula of the San Francisco Marin Food Bank.
And so right now, they're fundraising. Holiday donations make up a huge portion of all the food banks' annual operating budget.
"We're a bit behind what our goal is this time of year. So we really are asking our community to step up," says Padula.
Bacho agrees, "We do rely on the support of our community to make this work possible.
Several of the food banks have matching grants for donations right now.
And at Second Harvest of Silicon Valley they say two-thirds of what they bring in comes from individuals. They're hoping to raise an additional $12 million by the end of the year.