Valley leaders show support for Central California Food Bank
FRESNO – As more than 100,000 households in Fresno County face the reality of not having enough money to pay for groceries, Central Valley leaders are rallying around food banks and nonprofits to keep supporting their communities.
With the federal government shutdown extending into November, Rep. Jim Costa organized a press conference on Oct. 31 to put a local perspective on the cost of not funding Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. Joined by other elected officials and nonprofit directors at the Central California Food Bank in Fresno, Costaspoke about the importance of food security and what those in the Valley are doing to maintain it.
“Food is a security issue, and in the richest nation in the world, it is absolutely unconscionable that we not provide food to every segment of our society and to every person in America,” Costa said. “It’s beyond, I think, any reasonable level of consciousness that we would allow the richest country — I will repeat myself — to go without adequate nutrition on a daily basis.”
Costa said that within his district, which includes portions of Fresno and Tulare counties, about 30% of his constituents are food insecure and rely on SNAP benefits, known as CalFresh in California. Across the Valley, between 600,000 and 700,000 people receive SNAP benefits, Costa said — nearly the size of the city of Fresno.
Fresno County Department of Social Services Director Sanja Bugay shared that one in four county residents receive CalFresh, about 250,000 people or 128,000 households. In the first 10 days of the month, $46 million in benefits, about $355 per family, is distributed for food.
Just before the Friday press conference, one federal judge ruled that the United States Department of Agriculture had the authority to spend supplemental contingency funds set aside for SNAP benefits, Costa said. News of a second federal court ruling, which said President Donald Trump’s administration must distribute aid using these contingency funds, broke during the pressconference.
“I think the courts clearly, in two different decisions, have ruled decisively today,” Costa said.
Still, the Trump Administration announced on Nov. 3 that it would fund only half of the SNAP benefits that would have otherwise been distributed in November, and when exactly residents will see those benefits is uncertain. Bugay said benefits would not be available immediately, but the county will keep residents updated online as information changes.
While the Central California Food Bank (CCFB) is stepping up during this time to help residents, SNAP benefits are still the most efficient and effective anti-hunger tool the country has, CCFB CEO Natalie Caples said. For every meal CCFB distributes, SNAP can provide nine.
“One thing I want to make very clear is that Central California Food Bank and our member partners are resourceful, we are resilient and we’re dedicated, and we’re prepared to address the impacts of the continued shutdown and the SNAP benefit clip that starts Nov. 1 for the short term,” Caples said.
Fresno aids food bank
Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said regardless of what a court ruled or what the USDA ultimately does, the local community needs to plan for the worst and hope for the best.
Dyer said he plans to bring a resolution forward to the Fresno City Council on Nov. 6 that would allocate $250,000 in city funds to the Central California Food Bank, with $50,000 of those funds coming directly from Councilmember Nelson Esparza’s district budget.
Esparza said he was somewhat distracted at the previous council meeting thinking about how, despite a lot of awareness of SNAP funds running out, there would still be families going to the grocery store come Nov. 1 who would “find out the hard way” that their benefits were not renewed.
“That’s truly heartbreaking, and it’s hard to think about and wrap our heads around,” Esparza said.
Although providing food is generally outside of the scope of city government, he said, the city steps up when the community is in need, and the least they could do was find money in the operating budget to contribute to the food bank.
Addressing the partisan politics of the shutdown, Dyer said that some people call it a Republican problem, some call it a Democrat problem, but it’s a problem no matter what. As mayor of Fresno, Dyer said he was not willing to play a game of chicken to see which side blinks first.
“We know that kids do not do very well in school when they’re hungry, and we know that some of our most vulnerable seniors have died from malnutrition,” Dyer said. “And so it angers me as the mayor to know that we’re in this position today, but anger, unfortunately, doesn’t solve the problem.”
In addition to asking the Trump Administration to step forward and release funds for SNAP, Dyer called on community members across the Valley to step as they did during the pandemic and provide funding to food banks and nonprofits.
Through special partnerships, the Central California Food Bank is able to stretch its monetary donations to have the most impact possible — the food bank can turn every dollar donated into four meals, Esparza said.
“We’re prepared to support neighbors during this critical time, and we can do what we can to be able to meet the need, but the gap is so great that we can’t fill it alone,” Caples said. “We need everyone that’s capable to be able to step forward and stand with us in the moment.”
Valley residents can visit ccfoodbank.orgfor information on how to access resources from the food bank.