For KVCR News I'm Jessica Greenwell. I'm joined today by Carolyn Fajardo, CEO with Feeding America, Riverside-San Bernardino. Food insecurity is an issue all across the country. In the Inland Empire, it's no exception. Carolyn, can you tell us about what the situation looks like for our local residents?
CAROLYN FAJARDO:
Yeah, to kind of put it into perspective, in the state of California, there are about 4.9 million people who are food insecure; which means they don't have access to three meals a day. We know that here in the Inland Empire for Riverside and San Bernardino counties, there's over 500,000 people that are food insecure. That's a big number. So, to kind of put it into perspective, in 2020 we were using the statistic of 400,000 people are at risk of food insecurity. Right now, it's over 500,000 almost 550,000, so quite a bit of an increase, and we're kind of experiencing it too, especially in the summer. For a lot of families, it becomes really challenging to put food on the tables, especially with kids home. When kids are home, they don't have access to the free school meals, and it's also just more expensive here, because in the IE, it's so hot, a lot of families have increased bills at home, so more of an electricity bill than they're used to during the year. So, we see a big need here in the summer, so we're definitely experiencing it right now.
GREENWELL:
So how do you pivot during these challenging times during the summer?
CAROLYN FAJARDO:
So, we run many programs that do continue through the summer as well. Where it gets challenging is we have a program called Grab and Go, which is our child hunger program, where we work with school districts to get food out. We go from having seven school districts during the school year to only four school districts that we work with in the summer, because there's just not enough staffing to be able to run these programs. So, we continue to work with our partners to have these community food distributions available. But we also work on providing snap assistance year-round. We can help families during that time apply for ongoing assistance to get them through the difficult time.
GREENWELL:
And as you mentioned, there are a lot of people in the region that could potentially qualify for SNAP benefits. What is Feeding America doing specifically to help encourage people in that direction?
CAROLYN FAJARDO:
Yeah, so last year, we actually helped 1500 families apply for CalFresh benefits. We're continuing to do that. We have two actual bilingual CalFresh support staff members. In addition to providing phone assistance, they do a lot of outreach in the community. We also recently opened our second facility here in Riverside. Our first one is our big warehouse off of Jefferson Street in Riverside, and our second one is specifically focused on community resources. We have a learning center in there. We're working on building a pantry in there as well. But until those resources are open, we do have a CalFresh application office in there, so if there's anybody who wants in person assistance, our staff members can walk families through that to help them see if they qualify for assistance, but also get that first application in with their county. That way, the county can kind of take it from there and hopefully award them with those benefits.
GREENWELL:
And what other resources could potentially be offered at that location?
CAROLYN FAJARDO:
So, since it's a new facility, we're working on a lot of different resources that are going to become available to the community. I mentioned right now our Learning Center, this is a space that we've been using for a lot of different initiatives. Some of those, we've been able to host educational sessions for children to learn about healthy eating. We've also recently been hosting CalFresh training sessions for community organizations. So, there's a ton of nonprofits in the area that are offering a lot of great services, but we want to also equip them to be able to take those CalFresh referrals at their facility, just so we have more hands in the community that can help with CalFresh benefits. So, we've been hosting CalFresh training sessions out of there to get more nonprofits equipped with the abilities to take those referrals and hopefully get more families registered. In addition to that, we've been hosting kind of a lot of internal things. We've been hosting the chamber out of our Learning Center. And in the future, services that are offered out of the Learning Center are going to be kind of linked with what we have planned for our choice pantry that'll hopefully be opening in December of 2024.
GREENWELL:
Great. And what would your message be to folks who perhaps may qualify but have never wanted to take the step to apply for any type of assistance. You know, whether that's concerns about documentation or even the stigma.
CAROLYN FAJARDO:
Yeah, one of the comments our CalFresh coordinators receive often is people don't want to apply because they don't want to take resources from somebody else. We hear it all of the time, but it's really not true. There's enough resources for the people that qualify. It's all available. So, it doesn't hurt to just see if you qualify and see if you can get those benefits. We're always here to help, and if you don't qualify, then we can connect you with other resources in the community that are available for you.
GREENWELL:
Yeah, so you're saying, no matter what, just at least start the process. Reach out.
CAROLYN FAJARDO:
Yeah. Feedingie.org, start there. Go to the Get Help button. You'll see all of the different resources we have available, whether it's pantries or home deliveries, but we also have a link for CalFresh assistance on there. So, you can always make an appointment with our team. If you want to do it in person, you can do that, but at least, you know, get that appointment in so we can call you and work you through that process to see if we can, you know, get you registered for some benefit, and we can kind of take it from there and help you out.
GREENWELL:
So you mentioned the snap training for nonprofits. Could you tell us a little bit more about that?
CAROLYN FAJARDO:
Yeah, so on July 25, we'll be hosting a session at our new facility off of Trail Creek in Riverside. It's going to be from 12 to 2pm for nonprofits and organizations to come by learn about how they can offer help at their facility.
July 26 the very next day, we'll be hosting the same session, but in Spanish. So, from 12 to 2pm in Spanish, July 26. More information is available on our Instagram, Feeding America IE, it’s the first post, we have it pinned, there's more information on it there. Or you can visit feedingie.org/calfreshtraining. We really just want to get organizations that want to offer it equipped to be able to offer it.
GREENWELL:
Thank you so much for your time, Carolyn, we appreciate it.
CAROLYN FAJARDO:
Of course, thank you.
GREENWELL:
I've been speaking with Carolyn Fajardo, CEO of Feeding America, Riverside, San Bernardino. I'm Jessica Greenwell, KVCR News.