SANTA CRUZ — With residents in Santa Cruz County — and much of the wider region — ordered to shelter in place, many local food programs say their phones have been ringing off the hook as vulnerable people search for help.
Nonprofits Grey Bears and Community Bridges’ Meals on Wheels program, both of which deliver food to seniors at home, are each reporting marked increases.
“The level of concern and desperation on the calls we’re getting makes us realize how important what we’re doing is,” said Tim Brattan, Grey Bears’ executive director.
Grey Bears delivers food to about 4,000 people, about a quarter of whom were already homebound before the COVID-19 crisis. On Tuesday alone, roughly 30 new seniors signed up for food deliveries, according to Brattan.
“We are in the middle of not only dealing with the virus, but we’re dealing with unprecedented economic implications that we haven’t seen since 1929 in this country as a result of the pandemic,” said Community Bridges CEO Ray Cancino.
Even as demand for food programs and other services appears to rise, the programs themselves face a host of new challenges.
The nonprofits are exempted from closure under the shelter-in-place order because they provide essential services. But some revenue streams are up in the air, staffing levels are reduced, elderly volunteers are forced to stay home, and the nonprofits have had to quickly change their programs to keep the risk of transmission low and meet new social-distancing guidelines.
Meals on Wheels was forced to close its five in-person dining sites across Santa Cruz County. The program is now making home deliveries of prepared meals to the seniors who relied on those sites, on request.
And on Monday and Tuesday alone, Meals on Wheels received about 30 new applications for meal deliveries — as many as it typically receives in a month.
“We’re literally on the frontlines,” Cancino said, reflecting on working to meet the rising need in the community while the nonprofit faces uncertainty.
Second Harvest Food Bank, based in Watsonville, distributes food that ends up on the tables of more than 55,000 Santa Cruz County residents each year. Second Harvest distributes about 8 million pounds of food each year, both directly and through a network of hundreds of partners in the community including both Grey Bears and Meals on Wheels.
Some grocers may have seen shelves cleared by skittish shoppers, but Second Harvest has emphasized it is no danger of running out of food.
“We have plenty of food, it’s just a matter of can we get the systems in place to make sure it’s distributed,” said Suzanne Willis, the food bank’s chief development and marketing officer.
Some in its network of partners are already being forced to close up shop due to the virus, according to Willis.
But the food bank is working on its own drive-through food pick up program it hopes to have up and running next week, and partnering with Pajaro Valley Unified School District to distribute food alongside the schools’ pickup meal programs.
So far, the demand for Second Harvest has stayed relatively constant. But Willis expects it could increase drastically in days and weeks ahead if the threat of the virus, and the shelter-in-place orders, persist.
According to Willis, what the food bank needs now is more volunteers — and the funding necessary to meet a demand that appears likely to surge in coming weeks.
Grey Bears and Meals on Wheels are also now turning to those who are healthy or who have scarce supplies or funds to contribute.
According to Brattan, Grey Bears’ executive director, the program relies heavily on a network of about 800 volunteers, most of whom are senior citizens.
“We can’t even have them on the property right now, and they’re our life support,” Brattan said.
Other local programs, such as the local Salvation Army and Food Not Bombs Santa Cruz, have also shifted how they are distributing food to mitigate the risk of spreading infection.
The Food Not Bombs chapter, which serves food in downtown Santa Cruz, has put in place new hygienic protocols and is now offering limited meals intermittently throughout each weekday to keep the number of people present at once low while it works to enforce social-distancing guidelines.
The Salvation Army Santa Cruz Corps, meanwhile, is purchasing more food to meet an increased need and plans to begin offering drive-through food pickup starting next week, according to Captain Angel Marquez.
FOOD PROGRAMS
Second Harvest Food Bank
In need: Call food hotline at 831-662-0991, weekdays 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Volunteer: thefoodbank.org/volunteer/.
Donate: Monetary donations preferred, thefoodbank.org.
Grey Bears
In need: Ages 50 and up, greybears.org/get-involved/online-membership-form/.
Volunteer: Email grace@greybears.org.
Donate: Monetary donations at greybears.org. Anyone with shelf-stable food, alcohol-based hand sanitizers, isopropyl alcohol, disinfecting wet wipes, and unopened boxes of latex glove asked to email info@greybears.org.
Meals on Wheels
In need: Ages 60 and up, communitybridges.org/mealsonwheels/.
Volunteer: communitybridges.org/volunteer/.
Donate: Monetary donations at communitybridges.org/mealsonwheels/. Anyone with alcohol-based hand sanitizers, disinfecting wet wipes, and unopened boxes of latex glove asked to email MOWINFO@cbridges.org.
Additional resources
Online: 211santacruzcounty.org/food/.
Phone: 211
Text: Text your zip code to 898-211
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‘On the frontlines’: Nonprofits scramble to bring food to vulnerable amid coronavirus crisis - Santa Cruz Sentinel
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