As the COVID pandemic lingers and moves into the winter, food insecurity in the Tahoe Sierra is at an all-time high. Coupled with increasing job losses, illnesses and the rising cost of food, the need to feed families is greater now more than ever.
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According to the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 35.2 million people lived in food-insecure households in 2019. Due to the pandemic, more than 50 million people may now experience food insecurity in 2020, 17 million of which are children, according to Feeding America, a hunger-relief organization.
The Tahoe Sierra has also seen an uptick in people experiencing food insecurity, and several organizations are working tirelessly to help feed people in need and ensure they have access to nutritious food.
“Since mid-March, Sierra Community House’s Hunger Relief Program experienced a 216 percent increase in the number of community members served,” explains Laurel Howe, Hunger Relief Program coordinator of Sierra Community House. “Before the COVID-19 crisis, we were serving approximately 180 households per week through our food assistance programs. The initial stay-at-home order and subsequent economic closures resulted in 600 community members registering for our home delivery program. Many of these community members were seeking our services for the first time.”
Each week volunteers help pack and deliver meals to community members. The meal delivery service before COVID was only a small part of their program and intended for people that couldn’t make the in-person distribution, but since COVID they’ve expanded their delivery services.
“We’re running around l00 to 200 percent increase in services. I think that shows a lot of the issues in our community and our reliance on the service industry. When tourism, restaurants and ski resorts shut down, it is a huge impact,” says Howe. “We expect registration numbers to increase substantially as we enter the next peak of COVID-19 and begin to see further economic restrictions for local businesses and ski areas.”
Sierra Community House manages 122 volunteers for its Hunger Relief Program. Drive-through distributions are available Mondays in Tahoe City, Tuesdays in Truckee, Wednesdays in Kings Beach and Thursdays in Incline Village and no one is turned away.
The Truckee North Tahoe Emergency Warming Center in Truckee is another resource for the food insecure. Currently operating out of the Veterans Hall in downtown Truckee, the center offers day programs year-round and is open most nights when the weather is severe during the winter months. Providing nutritious meals is one of the services it offers.
“There’s plenty of crappy food available, like cookies and chips, but we’ve made it a point when we were preparing meals and serving food in the warming center that we wanted to provide, a home-cooked meal using nutritious ingredients,” explains Cathie Foley, program director of the Emergency Warming Center. She acknowledges that organizations like Sierra Community House, the Boys and Girls Club, and the Sierra Relief kitchen have been instrumental in feeding people in the community.
The Warming Center also gets support from Sierra Senior Services, which provides warm, nutritious lunches on the days the center is open and also helps with frozen meals for some of the evening meals. The Sierra Community House also provides boxes and bags of non-perishables. There is also currently a fundraising campaign for the Warming Center that is in need of donations.
“We serve Truckee, Tahoe City, Kings Beach, in addition to a sliver of El Dorado County, and Washoe County, Crystal Bay and the edge of Incline Village,” says Foley.
Sierra Relief Kitchen of Truckee also supports the food insecure. The husband and wife team of Danny McCabe, owner of The Station, and Rachel Graf, owner of Tremigo Restaurant, mounted a large-scale operation to feed people that needed support in the early months of COVID and at one-point were feeding 1,000 people twice a week. According to Graf the need is tremendous. They’ll be providing meals during the holidays and continuing to prepare meals for individuals in the community. They also support the warming center. The Tahoe Food Hub is another organization supporting efforts and host a program to encourage its clients to buy a Giving Box to donate to those in need.
Sierra Senior Services is also providing meals to seniors in North Lake Tahoe and Truckee, and El Dorado County provides meals to seniors through the South Lake Tahoe Senior Center.
On the South Shore, the Tahoe Coalition for the Homeless provides a Warm Room for people in crisis that is open for 3 to 4 months during the winter. The organization provides food and shelter and a myriad of social services. The shelter operates on a first-come, first-served basis and generally serves a maximum of 30 individuals.
“South Lake had a significant population of residents experiencing food insecurity before the pandemic started and has seen that need grow over the last year. As folks experience job loss, housing insecurity, and changing family dynamics, their access to healthy and affordable food has changed,” says Emma Neville, operations director for the Coalition for the Homeless. “Our clients now have additional access to healthy food options throughout the week. Many of our medically frail and elderly clients rely on these community meal and meal delivery options throughout the week. These amazing partner agencies haven’t let the pandemic slow them down and continue to ensure our South Lake families are fed in a safe and healthy way.”
Bread and Broth is a South Lake Tahoe nonprofit organization that provides food for families in need. According to Carol Gerard, director of Bread and Broth, the organization feeds 380 children weekly, distributes food bags to more than 600 people, and provides 108 bags of foods that don’t require preparation for people that don’t have kitchen facilities. Food bags are filled with vegetables, proteins, fruit, milk, eggs and butter. Bread and Broth also provide staples like canned goods and non-perishables.
“That’s over 1,000 people a week that receive food,” explains Gerard. She acknowledges that the number of people the organization serves has increased exponentially since the pandemic started.
“We are touching people’s lives with three to four days’ worth of food,” explains Gerard.
The need is great. Donations are critical to these local organizations now more than ever and volunteers are always welcome.
RESOURCES
Bread and Broth
breadandbroth.org
Sierra Community House
sierracommunityhouse.org
Sierra Relief Kitchen
sierrareliefkitchen.com
Sierra Senior Services
sierraseniors.org
Tahoe Coalition for the Homeless
tahoehomeless.org
Tahoe Food Hub Giving Box
tahoefoodhub.org
Truckee North Tahoe Emergency Warming Center
Truckee North Tahoe Emergency Warming Center on Facebook
Fundraiser | truckeeewc.networkforgood.com
