IN THE GIVING SPIRIT
Kaiser Permanente give $365,000 to Solano County Food Bank
As Solano County shoppers stock up for Christmas dinner this year, inflation means they'll likely find themselves buying less bread for more dough than last year. And the Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano is feeling the squeeze too with more people in need and less funding this year.
That's why Kaiser Permanente stepped up with a big donation this holiday season, providing $365,000 to the organization to help them through the difficult times.
“A grant of $270,000 supports healthy food distributions,” according to a Kaiser Permanente press release “and a $95,000 grant from a Kaiser Permanente fund at the East Bay Community Foundation supports outreach and enrollment to ensure community members have access to CalFresh (California's food stamp program) and MediCal, for a total of $365,000 in 2023.”
Darryl Curry, Senior Vice President and Area manager for Kaiser Permanente, said supporting community partners such as this one is vital to their mission, as providing healthy meals helps keep the community healthier as a whole.
“What that means to me is that this year, like in many years, families will sit down together at a table this holiday season and have a warm and healthy meal,” he said.
Kaiser Permanente's work is not just to care for illness and injury in the community, but to take care of people before they are ill. A healthy, full and nutritious diet is key to health and wellness, Curry said, and the work that the food bank does to get Solano County residents three square meals a day with fresh food really makes a difference.
Said Curry: “We take care of over 300,000 members here in the Napa-Solano area, and what that means to Kaiser Permanente is that we are providing
access to nutritious food that is going to make sure that people are healthy and
can stay out of the hospital, out of the emergency departments and with their families, which is where they want to be this time of year.”
Curry'd favorite Christmas dishes are ham, potatoes
and green beans. He said he was proud that Kaiser could provide not only the financial assistance, but also their employees' volunteer hours as well.
Lindsay Drakeley, leadership gifts manager for the food bank, said 2023 has been a tough year for the organization, with CARE and ARPA funds drying up, and pandemic assistance ending for many Solano County residents.
“There were a lot of people who were getting more money from different benefits programs to help compensate for lost jobs or inflation or whatever it might be,” she said. “Those ended almost universally this year, so each time one of those ended we saw more and more people.”
At the same time, Drakeley said, pandemic related donations have started to dry up for the food bank, so they are stuck trying to meet the increased need with less money. They are
trying to be creative with their spending, she said, slicing operational costs to try to provide more food.
The good news, Drakeley said, is that there are many ways to help the organization. Financial support is always helpful, she said, but volunteer hours are also vital to the operation. Food drives in the community are also helpful, but financial donations — which give the bank more purchasing power — are more helpful.
“Let's say you were going to spend $20 at the grocery store,” she said, “for that same $20 we can buy a palate of food.”
Awareness is also important, she said, because the food bank wants people to know they can come and visit when they need food.
“Although it's been a tough year we are continuing to operate,” Drakeley said. “We are financially stable. We're just having to figure it out.”