{"id":40732,"date":"2023-04-10T17:11:26","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T00:11:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cafoodbanks.org\/?p=40732"},"modified":"2024-07-05T14:20:30","modified_gmt":"2024-07-05T21:20:30","slug":"membermonday-food-share-ventura-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cafoodbanks.org\/es\/blog\/membermonday-food-share-ventura-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Lunes de #: Food Share Ventura County"},"content":{"rendered":"

Since 1978, Food Share has been feeding their community of Ventura County. The food bank began in a family garage, then quickly outgrew a donated fire station, and now operates in Oxnard, Calif. with three warehouses with a combined 46,000 square feet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 40 years later, Gina Howey (pictured below) and her husband, Walter Burstein, were busy family doctors in Ventura County before they went into semi-retirement and began volunteering with Food Share in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cOne of Food Share\u2019s Harvester newsletters came to the house, and I was reading about volunteer opportunities,\u201d said Gina, explaining how she and her husband found a new occupation \u201cdoing the bread run\u201d every Monday morning.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI saw one of the opportunities was to drive a truck. I always really liked driving to the point that my mother-in-law had a joke with me that if medicine didn’t work out, then Plan B was to be a truck driver. It was a perfect fit!\u201d<\/p>\n

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For the uninitiated, \u201cdoing the bread run\u201d involves picking up unsold food of all types \u2014 not just bread \u2014 from retail partners like Vons and Ralph\u2019s. Several teams do the run every Monday morning and the resulting food supplements the items that Food Share purchases providing a more diverse selection of foods, including bread, meat, and dairy products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\r\n A lot of times people are eating badly because they don’t have the money to buy vegetables and fruits. Good nutrition is critical to good health.
Gina Howey, Food Share Volunteer<\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n
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As doctors, the couple have seen the impact of food insecurity on health and wellbeing. \u201cI had longtime patients \u2014 a couple. They were well off and would talk about trips they were taking and the restaurants they would go to,\u201d Gina explains. \u201cSome years after the husband passed away, I saw the wife and she had lost a lot of weight. I couldn\u2019t figure out why until she finally confessed that she didn’t have enough money for food. It was so hard for her to admit it coming from the lifestyle she had been used to.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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This is only one example of how hunger can hide in plain sight. Countless studies have shown the impact that food insecurity and poor nutrition has on mental and physical health, children\u2019s academic performance, and older adults\u2019 ability to remain active and independent. Food Share\u2019s work is critical to providing a healthy future for thousands of people in Ventura County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Never has this been more vital than during the past three years as the number of people seeking assistance has skyrocketed. At the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, to cope with the increased demand coupled with the closure of a quarter of Food Share\u2019s network of community pantries, the organization began running \u201cpop-up\u201d emergency, drive-thru, food box distributions. The boxes contain shelf-stable pantry items like rice, pasta, peanut butter and canned proteins like chicken and tuna. And, with the support of the California Association of Food Banks’ Farm to Family Program, they\u2019re supplemented with California-grown, seasonal fresh produce. When available, milk and cheese are also distributed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n\n

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Initially, the expectation was that the distributions might be needed for a few weeks, but those weeks quickly turned into months, and those months into years. Nine hundred and fifty distributions later, Food Share is entering its fourth year providing emergency food boxes. We at CAFB are so grateful for our partnership with Food Share, and for all of the work that they do every day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n\n\n

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To learn more about Food Share Ventura County, check out their sitio web<\/a>, or follow them on Facebook<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, Gorjeo<\/a>, LinkedIn<\/a>y YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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