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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Survival Tactics for Social Services

At Foodshare of Ventura County’s storage and distribution warehouse in Oxnard, the nonprofit’s regular crew of volunteer workers is nowhere to be found. Instead, 20 Air National Guardsmen sort and stack boxes of canned goods, fresh produce and paper products on pallets to be passed out to the region’s food pantries. “When volunteers were encouraged to shelter in place, we needed to look for outside help,” Foodshare Chief Executive Monica White told the Business Journal. “The National Guard was tasked by the governor to help food banks. When they called, we were in a position where we needed to pack all these emergency food boxes.” Foodshare uses its two warehouses in Oxnard to distribute food to about 190 pantries and programs in Ventura County. White said most of the pantries that source food from Foodshare also rely on teams of volunteers, many of whom are older and at higher risk of contracting COVID-19. Because that workforce is now staying home, some of those pantries have closed, further limiting options for the county’s growing population of homeless, unemployed and at-risk families. For that reason, Foodshare has started hosting pop-up drive-through food drives to keep a pipeline open without flouting social distancing recommendations. It has staged three pop-ups in Oxnard so far. “We’re working at 110 percent … trying to meet demand,” said White. “We currently serve 75,000 people every month, and we anticipate that number may increase dramatically. We’re planning for the worst.” The volunteer shortage is just one way COVID-19 has changed the game for food banks. In a typical week, Foodshare gets its food for free from grocery stores including Costco Warehouse Corp., Walmart Inc. and Smart & Final, which donate their overages. But White said demand for groceries has been so high amid the pandemic that grocery stores no longer have overages to donate. As a result, Foodshare has resorted to buying food. “We’re dipping into our reserves,” White said. “We’re asking every individual, corporation, foundation and organization in our Feeding America network for donations. We’ll do it as long as we can.” According to Dena Jenson, director of California Lutheran University’s Center for Nonprofit Leadership, all kinds of organizations must adapt their operating models because of the outbreak. “After school programs and that kind of thing where you have large groups of people or children, a lot of those services have probably been cancelled,” she said. “Overnight, everything we do in the face-to-face community had to hit pause.” Additionally, she said, tighter budgets and dry donation streams mean nonessential services that don’t directly respond to the pandemic and its fallout are likely to get slashed. “The conversations in the boardroom are critical,” Jenson explained. “What do we do that has the highest impact with the resources we’re able to deploy? Let’s shed the things that have less impact.” Jenson said that downsizing unfortunately extends to paid staffers, in a capacity that may threaten the nonprofit sector’s ability to fill demand beyond the next few months. “We’re beginning to hear stories of significant layoffs, furloughs and decreases in salaries and hours. … (For those employees to be rehired) can be the intention, but will those individuals stay in the region? Can they afford to stay here on savings and unemployment?” Jenson said. “In the economic recession of 2008, many people who were providing services overnight were on the receiving side of nonprofit services. The staff became recipients.” Jenson emphasized the importance of a robust recovery campaign after the outbreak subsides. The first step of that recovery, she said, is how the federal government rolls out its $2.2 trillion economic relief package, also called the CARES Act. “Nonprofits are eligible for those aid packages. … However, it’s not clear how organizations will be able to apply,” she said.

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