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Orange County’s Board of Supervisors approved over $100,000 to help bolster a local nonprofit’s efforts to feed families across the county just as food bank leaders are ringing the alarm bells that hunger is starting to skyrocket in OC again.
Leaders with the Orange County Hunger Alliance late last month warned of a quiet spike in hunger across OC to levels they haven’t seen since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
[Read: Hunger is on a Sharp and Silent Rise in Orange County This Thanksgiving]
Their warning comes ahead of the release of a new county report on the condition of children that found the percentage of kids eligible for free school lunches has gone up this year from about 53% to 54% – a hallmark indicator of poverty.
On Tuesday, supervisors voted unanimously to approve allocating $115,000 to Families Forward in third district discretionary funds to help them create a new food pantry space and transform a warehouse into a palletized storage facility with a walk-in refrigerator.
“This grant will help this dedicated nonprofit to expand its facilities to address the growing need of Orange County’s families facing food insecurities,” said Board Chair Don Wagner – who requested the funding – in a Tuesday news release.
Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento supported giving the money to Families Forward, but said the board needs to clarify if these are discretionary funds or federal COVID bailout dollars in an effort to bolster transparency after the county government was recently rocked by a bribery scandal.
“There’s still consequences from people that were hurting during the pandemic. I just want to understand where these funds come from,” he said at the meeting. “I think the public needs to understand that as well.”
Sarmiento’s remarks come as county supervisors are inching forward with hiring an outside auditor to review county contracts after former Supervisor Andrew Do resigned and pleaded guilty to bribery charges stemming from a $10 million contract – in federal bailout dollars – that was supposed to feed the elderly.
[Read: OC Supervisors Approve Outside Audit After Bribery Scandal]
Hunger on The Rise in OC
Last month, CEO of the Second Harvest Food Bank of OC Claudia Bonilla Keller told Voice of OC her food bank served over half a million people in October – the most since the height of the pandemic in a county of about 3.2 million people.
But this time around, food bank leaders say they’re not getting the same level of financial support from government agencies and private donations that they received during the height of the pandemic.
Now, Keller and other food assistance leaders are asking for help to meet a gap in resources amid a high demand for food and a hidden hunger crisis.
“The food banks and the food pantries need assistance at this time for a problem that, quite frankly, most people are not aware of,” Keller said in a phone interview last month.
People looking to donate to or volunteer with local organizations like Second Harvest Food Bank or the OC Food Bank can do so at the links provided here.
Families Forward Get a Boost Before Christmas
The money will fund the majority of a $200,000 project by Families Forward – a nonprofit based in Irvine that works to house homeless people – to refurbish a workspace into a food pantry and transform their warehouse into a palletized storage facility.
Madelynn Hirneise, CEO of the nonprofit, said at Tuesday’s OC Board of Supervisors meeting that addressing food insecurity is the first step to addressing homelessness.
“We are committed to ending and preventing family homelessness in Orange County, and that really starts with the front door. And for most families, that front door is food,” she said.
Her comments come after her nonprofit distributed Thanksgiving food bags to more than a 1,000 families last month.
Currently, Families Forward offers a food pantry at their office in Irvine Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for OC residents who have registered to pick up food.
To register for the Families Forward food pantry, click here.
According to their website, people are currently not allowed into the pantry.
But the new space will allow families to go in and choose what food they want.
The remodeled space will also be an opportunity to connect families to public benefits and other services including employment and childcare assistance.
A majority of the county’s funding – $75,000 – will go towards getting freezers, fridges, fans, shopping carts for people to use to pick out food, signs, delivery equipment and other equipment for Families Forward.
The rest of the county money – $40,000 – will go towards construction.
The project is expected to be completed in early 2025.
Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter and corps member with Report for America, a GroundTruth initiative. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.
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