Foodbank in the News

CalFresh COVID benefits ended in March, and thousands of households in Santa Barbara County are affected by the change. Recent storms have added to the challenges for agricultural workers. CalFresh is a supplemental nutrition assistance program that provides monthly grocery money to low-income families. It’s part of the federal program called SNAP. In 2020, the government began to issue additional benefits to program recipients during the pandemic, but those extra allotments ended in March.

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Beginning this week, [more than] 30,000 Santa Barbara County families will find themselves forced to make do with $178 less per month per household in federal food stamp benefits designed to get them through the COVID emergency. With the absences of the emergency allotments, recipients will still be receiving food stamps — better known as the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program, or SNAP — but at the pre-pandemic level. With food prices 11 percent higher this January than they were the previous year, that spells serious trouble, according to Laurel Alcantar of the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County.

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SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – The Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara hosted its monthly Healthy Food Pantry event on Mar. 15 at the Presidio Springs Community Room. Every third Wednesday of the month, the HACSB, in collaboration with 2nd Story Associates and the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, provide local community members with a bag of fresh produce and nonperishables.

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Santa Barbara, CA, March 20, 2023 – The Housing Authority of the City of Santa Barbara (HACSB) hosted its monthly Healthy Food Pantry event on Wednesday, March 15, 2023 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Presidio Springs Community Room located at 721 Laguna St, Santa Barbara, CA. The Healthy Food Pantry events are a collaboration between HACSB, 2nd Story Associates, and the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, who provides the supply of food. Every third Wednesday of the month, the Housing Authority and Foodbank of Santa Barbara County provide local community members with a bag of fresh produce and nonperishables. Approximately 145 bags of food are given out at each event.

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SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – Crews at the food distribution site in Santa Ynez Valley are in a hurry. “The food here goes pretty fast … this morning we had five or six baskets of bread cakes and now it’s all gone,” said assistant director Linda Linton of the Santa Ynez Valley Community Outreach. “I’m grateful for the Foodbank … for it being there. I could get emotional,” said client Lora Feller of the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County.

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SANTA BARBARA, Calif. – The Santa Barbara Food Bank hosted its fourth training for ‘CERT’ volunteers Sunday. ‘CERT’ stands for Community Emergency Response Team.

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New Community Carts campaign allows anyone to donate groceries to food banks in states where emergency COVID-19 SNAP benefits are expiring, with no delivery or service fees. Extension of discounted Instacart+ memberships for SNAP recipients will help families put food on the table

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By the Office of Rep. Salud Carbajal

[Last week], Congressman Salud Carbajal (CA-24) toured the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County’s new warehouse in Goleta to see where the $1,500,000 he delivered in last year’s federal funding package will help expand capacity to serve Central Coast families in need. “Last spring, nearly a year ago, I got a request from the Foodbank to help them get federal funding to help get Sharehouse up and running. And I immediately knew how important this would be – because before I was a Member of Congress, I worked with non-profits in this area to tackle one of our region’s most central issues: hunger,” said Congressman Carbajal. “One in six children from Santa Barbara County is food insecure–and that’s why organizations like the Foodbank of Santa Barbara County are so critical. They help families across our region get the food on the table that they need.

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Santa Barbara County received 1,129 CalFresh food benefit applications from residents claiming that they were impacted by the January storms, County Public Information Officer Kelsey Buttitta told the Sun. The California Department of Social Services opened up eligibility for individuals and families affected by the January storms to receive disaster CalFresh food benefits as part of recovery efforts, Buttitta said. Individuals qualified if they lived or worked in Santa Barbara County, spent money because of the storms or related power outages, lost income due to limited or fewer work days, or spent money on household repairs. Individuals also needed to reach certain income thresholds—ranging from $1,950 per month for one-person households to $4,768 for eight-person households, according to a California Department of Social Services breakdown.

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“A brother from another mother.” These five words describe the relationship that I was blessed to share with Edward Bear for the past 48 years. Edward Bear passed away the morning of February 10, 2023, leaving a legacy unmatched by many of us. He leaves behind a loving and wonderful wife, Lori Fuller, and countless friends and associates that he positively impacted throughout his life. Edward Bear, whose given name was Stephen Hirsch, was born on May 30, 1938, in Manhattan and was raised in Brooklyn. He graduated from James Madison High School, the same public high school that the likes of Ruth Bader Ginsberg (1950), Carole King (1958), Bernie Sanders (1959), Chuck Schumer (1967), and six Nobel laureates attended.

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