“No one should ever go hungry.”
That’s how volunteer Heather Prieto sums it up. After getting involved with Feeding America Riverside | San Bernardino through her church group, Prieto began volunteering with her family when her children were 5 and 8 years old. Years later, after her youngsters moved on to junior high and high school, she’s still in.
So it should come as no surprise that a large industrial warehouse off Jefferson Street in Riverside, the center of FARSB operations, is a place where the community comes together.
It’s not just one individual hero but many, everyday folk helping to combat hunger in children, seniors and anyone in need, whether they live on the other side of the county or next door.
On a recent Thursday morning, the collection and distribution center was all motion and activity.
Just inside the farthest door of the food bank, volunteers pushed carts between large cardboard boxes filled with an assortment of food donations. They are college students, retirees, healthcare workers, representing the spectrum of age, ethnicity and careers — but they share a commitment to do something meaningful: help others.
Kellie Albright of Moreno Valley regularly drives a half-hour, one-way, to do her part. As a student at UCLA, Albright was doing clinical volunteer work and she wanted to also do something different.
She decided to check out local food banks and visited FARSB, which she found to be well organized and friendly. She liked the people, and she confesses she likes sorting. “It’s actually kind of fun, like a game,” she says as she moves between large 4-foot by 4-foot cardboard boxes filled with random foodstuffs, pulling items like kids’ snacks onto her cart.
“And it’s rewarding,” she adds, “knowing that what I did helped people.”
Large volume FARSB donors are grocery and food stores, and many of the donations that flow in are hodge-podge collections of food items that are close to their “best by” dates, but still safe for consumption. Volunteers inspect and collect like items — snacks with snacks, baking ingredients with baking ingredients, canned goods which are alike — so they can be packaged for shipment to or pick-up by food pantries in and around the Inland Empire.
And the need is large.
In the Inland Empire, the food bank’s outreach touches the lives of about 300,000 people each month. About 530,000 in the area are considered food-insecure, meaning they aren’t getting all three meals a day, says Rachel Bonilla, an FARSB communications and government affairs specialist.
Jeff Girod, FARSB board member and assistant dean at UC Riverside, puts it in even simpler terms: in the Riverside/San Bernardino County area, one in eight people face hunger.
“That statistic is even more dire for children, where one in six are food insecure,” he said. “Food insecurity is a critical issue facing too many of us.”
In terms of volume, over the course of a year, FARSB collects and ships some 36 million pounds of food, approximately 30 million meals along with assorted other items like diapers, plush toys and various sundries. (Every meal is 1.2 pounds of food.)
Routinely, groups of 15 volunteers work morning and afternoon shifts Monday through Friday; some are regulars, others come just once for the experience.
Over the course of a year, between these efforts and others, the greater community contributes more than 25,000 volunteer hours — a lot of people, joining in to lend a hand. They come as individuals, small groups and family members and they learn what to do with the help of leads, senior volunteers who operate equipment and help direct work.
While it all sounds complicated, it’s a systemically efficient operation, where people power, combined with organized giving, makes everything go.
Walking around the warehouse, one finds a space that looks a lot like a Costco or Lowe’s in terms of storage and organization, but of course it’s all for food; there are even large walk-in spaces for refrigeration of perishable and frozen food.
And it’s not just small individual items that are on hand; pallets of goods are donated by major retailers including WalMart, Target, CVS, Costco, Ralphs, Kroger and Stater Bros.
How is there so much? It can be attributed at least partly to California law which requires that surplus edible food which might otherwise be discarded be donated to food banks. The surplus may result from issues with best by dates, broken or incorrectly wrapped pallets, or deliveries rejected because of consignment issues.
The law applies to supermarkets, grocery stores, food distributors, wholesale food vendors and food service providers as well as large operations which have services that provide food or meals like event venues, hotels and some health and educational facilities.
Add in the public and commercial considerations and misconceptions on food safety and labeling, which guide the way many of us shop.
According to the U.S.D.A. Food Safety and Inspection service, “best by” dates should not be confused with expiration dates.
A “best by” date indicates when a product is at its peak quality and flavor according to manufacturers; a “sell by” date tells stores how long a product should be displayed for sale or inventory; and the “use by” date indicates the last date to use a product for peak quality.
With the exception of infant formulas, the U.S.D.A. reports that, if stored properly, products can still be safe after labeled dates, though consumers are advised to look for possible spoilage, evidenced by odor, color or texture. Infant formula should not be purchased or used after its “use by” date.
So with retailers choosing to donate rather than deal with “best by” labeling issues, and the nudge from California law, food bank operations have a donation base that just needs its people power. Locally, that’s the volunteers, leads and the staff team at FARSB.
After moving to Riverside during the pandemic, Luis Molina was looking for a job — but not just any job; he wanted something meaningful and rewarding. As the volunteer services supervisor at FARSB, he found what he was looking for — a way to help others contribute. He’s been fulfilling that role for four years now.
Molina says he really enjoys the work; mostly it’s responding to phone calls and inquiries from individuals and corporate groups. But people often stop him on the street and ask how they can help, he adds.
The best way to participate, he says, is to go online at feedingamericaie.org and book a shift doing something that appeals to you.
The options include working at the food bank, but also at monthly distributions at community centers or senior centers, making food deliveries to homebound persons, and even seasonal gleaning (that’s picking leftover crops or produce, such as oranges from groves or backyards).
Once volunteers book a shift, Molina gives them a tour of the warehouse and explains operations and gets them set up with a lead volunteer to help guide them through their efforts.
After food is sorted and prepped for pickup or delivery, that’s where the last community link comes into play: the community partner organizations. These client-facing organizations run food pantries, soup kitchens and various locations where the food is actually distributed; they might be churches, synagogues or community centers.
“A perfect example is our partner at Lighthouse of Hope,” says Bonilla, which is a faith-based organization that offers a pantry or food distribution site once a week at their location. The church has services for their congregation on Sundays, but they have volunteers and members of the church at the pantry distributions where they give out the food.”
It’s no surprise that it’s about community and, often, faith, like in Prieto’s case.
“… We did it together as a family and amongst our church family so we left feeling good. I don’t think any of us ever forgot that feeling,” she said. “We have always taught our kids if you can be anything, be kind. We aren’t well off, but we have enough and when someone is in need we want to give.”
TO LEARN MOREFor more information about Feeding America Riverside | San Bernardino — including volunteering, food bank operations and outreach — visit feedingamericaie.org.