Recently, a woman visited one of the Valley Food Bank’s pantries at Freedom Church in Chatsworth. She wanted to share her appreciation for the blessing that the food has been in her life:

“Thank you Freedom Church for the Pantry,” she said. “My family has had an extremely hard time making ends meet during COVID. These boxes full of dairy, meat, and produce really help feed my 91-year-old mother, my kids, grandkids and a couple of displaced friends.

“We really appreciate all that you do to help us stay healthy with great nutritional food. Thank you also for the treats for the kiddies! God bless all of you and thanks again!”

~Submitted by Pastor Justice Coleman, Freedom Church

Headquartered in Chatsworth, Premier America has been serving the financial needs of the San Fernando Valley for over 60 years. Premier America recognizes the importance of investing in the communities where Member Owners and their team members call home. On Give Back Day, the leadership team from Premier America made a $2,500 donation to the Valley Food Bank’s on-going program “Fighting Hunger – Feeding Hope” to support the distribution of food resources to the struggling parents, individuals, seniors and veterans in the local community.

Premier America looks for opportunities to “Give Back” through donations, financial education, and volunteerism, as well as through their foundation. Due to COVID restrictions, a Give Back Volunteer Day event was not possible, but the credit union wanted to ensure those neediest families in the community would have some relief. Thank you Diana Cervantes, Marcy Riedinger, Sierra Gutierrez, Mahsa Hadjiaghai, Manal Khalil and all of your member-owners for your support.

On a recent Friday, people started lining up for a food distribution about three hours before the 9 a.m. start. Shade from the towering trees helped provide some respite from the sun, while the day got increasingly hot as the sun moved overhead. Many of the families were Latino, and among the rations being distributed that day was Maseca for making tortillas. Sitting in a Chevy sedan one September morning, Emma looked out with a daze in her eyes—the hustle and bustle all around was just a blur. Many businesses were closed, and some folks were eating on the sidewalks as cars lined up for a food distribution.

If one place underscores just how dire our hunger problem has become during the pandemic, it is here, in the heart of the San Fernando Valley, in a city that supplies food up and down the coast and across the border. For many who are fighting hunger, the ranks are expected to swell some 45 percent this year. Emma, her husband, and children are among them. She has come to this spot, an empty parking lot, to collect free boxes of food resources: fruits, vegetables, dairy, protein and bakery goods. Many waited in line ahead of her for hours. “It has been hard,” she said. “We have had to dramatically change how we eat.”

Before the coronavirus shut down, which cost Emma her job as a teacher, she had visited some community food pantries, but had never been to a large-scale, drive-through food distribution in her life. Now, at 40, she is a regular. This is one of the most jarring aspects of the hunger crisis: About one-third of those relying on food pantries, large-scale and emergency food distributions now are doing so for the first time, according to Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger-relief organization.

On a recent Zoom call with a local Rotary Club, the director of the Valley Food Bank, Will Hernanddez, was quoted as saying: “We are no longer projecting a surge. We are experiencing a surge in food insecurity and an unprecedented demand from first-time recipients.”

Demand at the pantries are up 63 percent this year over the same time last year, and groups like Second Harvest say the peak has yet to come. The federal government’s $600 weekly supplement to unemployment insurance, which helped millions weather job losses and pay household bills, came to an end.

There are people like Emma, who previously did not work enough to qualify for unemployment benefits. Her husband works construction but that has been slow, sporadic at best. Meanwhile, the family has had to give up eating lots of things to make the mortgage and utilities. “Food is one of the last things on our list,” she said.

A program known as Farmers to Families Food Box Program, which is buying surplus supplies to deliver to food banks and other organizations provided the food that Emma received.

The Teens Giving Back Initiative (TGB) is a teen-run organization created by sisters, Andy and Abby Soriano. Because of the Coronavirus pandemic, they wanted to create a group with the goal of “giving back” hence the name.

The organization wanted to use current events to help those affected by them. First they started with front liners. They created their first project in May of 2020 called “Project #001 LifeSavers for Life Savers” where teens from all over Los Angeles County created handmade notecards with words of gratitude and encouragement to keep doing the hard work front liners do every day, especially during this challenging time.

Their most recent project was “Project #002: Community Food Drive” where members of TGB went out into their communities and placed paper bags at doors with a letter attached asking for donations of food and hygiene products. The teens then went out into their communities a week later and collected the donations from doorsteps, sorted the collection, packed it all in cars and headed to the Valley Food Bank, knowing their efforts would help hundreds of people.

TGB is a safe place for teens who aspire to give back to the communities. The organization is all about building friendships, providing an outlet from school and other concerns, and creating a love for service and generosity.