Area food pantries need nonperishable foods for distribution to families impacted by COVID-19

The coronavirus has changed the way Fallbrook and southwest Riverside county food pantries distribute food to their families.

The demand for food at the food pantries continues to rise as stay at home orders from the San Diego and Riverside County public health agencies reach into a second month.

While some community pantry shelves are still stocked, the number of volunteers to help pack boxes of food and hand them out to the lines of people in cars has been decreasing. Other pantries also said their storage shelves are beginning to empty because of an increasing demand.

Steve Johnson, longtime warehouse manager of the Western Eagle Foundation, explained the changes to food pantry distribution brought on by the pandemic.

“We’ve been blessed with an abundance of food,” Johnson said in a telephone interview Monday, April 20.

He said the Western Eagle warehouse at 40940 County Center Drive serves almost 25 nonprofit organizations, food pantries and food banks across the three-county area with perishable and non-perishable foods.

He said the warehouse has all of its 100 pallets filled with food waiting to be distributed. His workers and volunteers have been filling up 1,000 to 1,200 boxes of food every week as compared 600 or 700 before the pandemic. The full boxes are sold for $15 each to anyone who needs them. Every Thursday dozens of trucks from the nonprofit food banks and charitable groups pick up the boxes for distribution to their clients in need.

“They are really big boxes of food,” he said.

They contain meat, dairy products and many staples to feed a family for some time.

“There is no question about it. We are meeting their needs. But we don’t know how long it will last,” he said.

He said many of the local food banks are having a problem finding enough volunteers to hand out the packed boxes to the hundreds of waiting families who must wait in their cars and trucks wearing masks and maintain social distancing.

“It used to be the food bank volunteers came from the able-bodied 60 or older crowd, but now they are afraid to leave their homes because of the virus,” Johnson said.

The Fallbrook Food Pantry, 140 N. Brandon Road, took to Facebook asking for help.

“COVID-19 emergency food distribution is needed. The world, as we know it, is changing and through these unprecedented times, we are all trying to find some sort of comfort in the goodness of people and community. Though we may feel powerless and helpless...we are not! We do have the power to help,” according to their Facebook post. “We have the power to positively impact someone's life who is struggling in ways we cannot even imagine...and HUNGER is a very common challenge for millions of people today who may have lost their jobs and now are uncertain about their futures.  Now is the time to help change the lives of our neighbors who are most vulnerable! Please give any amount that you can...because even a little goes a long way.”

Their greatest need is for non-perishable items that they cannot even find in quantity in the local grocery stores.

The Fallbrook Food Pantry continues to serve as many as 500 families weekly. For many families, it’s their first time picking up food from the facility. Residents impacted by the coronavirus can pick up their food boxes by appointment in 30-minute intervals Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. 

Call 760-728-7608 for more information about food pickups and needed donations.    

Tony Ault can be reached by email at [email protected].