With many families still struggling financially from pandemic-related challenges, food assistance is much needed in San Diego County this holiday season. Feeding San Diego, the county’s leading hunger relief and food rescue organization, is working diligently with the help of its staff and volunteers to source, pack, and distribute enough food for families. The organization anticipates that it will distribute around 3.5 million pounds of food by the end of the month. To be capable of distributing such a high volume of food, the organization relies heavily on its volunteers. In December, there will be up to 2,700 San Diegans donating their time to make the holidays brighter for families in need.
“While we focus on providing hunger relief throughout the county year-round, the holidays are certainly a time when no family should have to worry about not having the budget to purchase nutritious and seasonal foods,” said Dan Shea, CEO of Feeding San Diego. “It’s the time of year when we hope to give hope and share joy in our community. Our mission of rescuing surplus food to feed people in need simply isn’t possible without all our stakeholders.”
Feeding San Diego gets food out to the community in a variety of ways, including direct distribution to the community and extensive partnerships with agencies around the county who help the non-profit provide food assistance in addition to wraparound services. This month, Feeding San Diego is providing food to several of its agency partners for special holiday distributions, including the San Diego and Imperial Counties Labor Council’s Annual Food & Toy Drive for working families in need and Veteran Affairs’ Care & Share event for unhoused veterans.
The dry goods boxes provided to partners include holiday food items like stuffing mix, canned sweet potatoes and green beans, mashed potato mix, cranberry sauce, and more.
In its last fiscal year, Feeding San Diego provided 35 million meals to San Diegans in need across the county. Those in need of help can visit Feeding San Diego’s website to use the Find Food Map, which allows the public to search for food distributions by ZIP code.
