The four-month stimulus program to aid struggling families has
run its course. Though Saturday morning will be the last day to
receive food boxes in Morgan Hill from the Second Harvest Food Bank
it won’t be the final chance to get the essentials.
The four-month stimulus program to aid struggling families has run its course. Though Saturday morning will be the last day to receive food boxes in Morgan Hill from the Second Harvest Food Bank it won’t be the final chance to get the essentials.
“Because we saw such a huge response in the community of families that need help we believe we must still continue to help those in need,” said Cindy McCown, Second Harvest’s senior director of programs and services.
Once a month since April, behind St. Catherine Church at 17400 Peak Ave., families have lined up to receive food boxes teeming with frozen chicken, tuna, ground turkey, tortillas, eggs, milk, fresh fruit and vegetables. Thanks to President Barack Obama’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, a piece of the effort went to a food assistance stimulus program that has widely benefited Santa Clara County resident’s suffering from economic backlash.
About $4 million in aid went to the county through ARRA funds and some was relegated to the Second Harvest Food Bank to ramp up its food donations. After McCown and others analyzed the figures, they saw there was a great need to serve low-income families in Morgan Hill.
Volunteers at Second Harvest and Reach Out, St. Catherine’s own food assistance program, have helped hundreds of families over the past four months. The extra injection of stimulus money allowed the county to distribute more than 70,000 boxes of food.
Denise Boland, a CalWorks administrator, said the program is cost neutral since its run by volunteers and the county met the requirement by the Feds that every box must be matched with a local donation. For our county, 20 percent of each box is fresh produce.
“We’ve served an awful lot of people,” Boland said. She said she’s still hopeful the U.S. Senate will extend the program, though it was pitched as a short-term aide.
Meanwhile, the wheels are spinning at the county and Second Harvest as to how to keep the program going at Reach Out in some form.
“It won’t be the same, nutritionally not the same,” Boland said. The boxes they hand out now are larger and have a greater variety than the food that is typically donated to Second Harvest. “It will be a slimmed down box. It will be what we can afford and is based more on what we’re given. But we’re still hopeful ARRA gets a boost,” Boland said.
Families who qualify for the food boxes have incomes more similar to working-class families than those entrenched in poverty.
Typically, families who qualify for food assistance also utilize food stamps or WIC, but the stimulus food boxes are meant to help a richer clientele who may have lost their jobs or have faced financial hardship due to the economy.
Families with children younger than 18 are only eligible – no seniors or singles – and income cannot exceed 300 percent of the federal poverty level as defined by the Department of Health and Human Services. For a family of five the cutoff is $77,370 a year or $6,448 a month. Any family with an income less than that figure will qualify.
McCown said larger families are usually offered more than one box; “About 75 pounds of food when it’s all said and done,” she said. The April distribution helped about 200 families, with the next two doubled in size to help 450 families.
“It’s been a huge community success as far as coming together,” McCown said.
One woman – who is “doing a lot of volunteering and loving every minute of it” – Debbie Molyneaux helps at Reach Out and has seen firsthand the “fantastic” community support by local Boy Scouts, men’s groups, Ladies of Charity and volunteers from St. Vince de Paul and St. Catherine’s. Each month about 40 or 50 helpers donated their time, and the scouts got an added workout. “They’re running pretty good,” Molyneaux said about the boys who sprint to and from the parking lot with shopping carts to unload the food boxes.
Families who reside in Morgan Hill, San Martin and Coyote Valley are welcome to Reach Out Saturday starting at 8 a.m. McCown encourages people to arrive early.
“It makes it all worthwhile to see the people’s faces and the kids,” Molyneaux said. Molyneaux used the word “overwhelm” in every other sentence when she described seeing how many families were receiving help.
“We gave out so much food, it was the most people (Reach Out) has ever had … two hours of continuous people and the line was wrapped around the parking lot. I was very ‘wow’ the whole time,” she said.
HOW TO GET HELP
Visit the Reach Out station in the St. Catherine Church parking lot at 17400 Peak Avenue. Volunteers will begin handing out food boxes at 8 a.m. Be sure to bring identification and prepare to give the last four digits of your Social Security number. Also proof of minor children is required, but they do not need to be present.
Emergency food is available Monday through Friday from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Reach Out center to aid hungry people in town. Contact of****@**ca.org or call 779-3959 for more information.
