It”s not another “Star Wars” sequel, it”s not DMV on Thursday afternoon or the post office at Christmas.
This is the line for the Fort Bragg Food Bank.
Lines, very long ones at times, were proof enough to me that there are many more hungry people than ever this year.
But I asked Food Bank Executive Director Nancy Severy anyway.
“Each month this year we served 25 to 35 percent more people than in the corresponding month last year,” she said.
“The good news is we”re doing as well as last year with funding. The bad news is, we need 25 to 35 percent more funding to provide the same level of service as before,” Severy said. “We are still providing a good service to our clients, but we need to do more in these tough times.”
As a reporter, I”ve been going to the Food Bank every year for three years now and writing these first person reports on what I see. As in past years, I signed up as a client and am spending a lot of time with the clients in order to see how well this charity works and who it serves.
Responses to this effort — the Advocate-News and The Beacon”s Season of Sharing fund drive — are a key part of the Food Bank”s annual budget.
“To stay on budget with projections made at the beginning of the year, we hope to raise $30,000 from the Season of Sharing, most generously sponsored by the newspapers,” Severy said.
“We also need an additional $75,000 in direct local donations to see us through to the end of the year and to put us in a good position to make it through the lean months in the first half of 2010. Keeping it in mind that this budget was made before we knew the full impact of the recession on local need, we are aiming to raise 30 percent more than this, if at all possible,” she said.
Real people who need food
It”s actually the elderly lady with two dogs in the white van who has caught my eye this year. She was living in that van with two large, very sweet black dogs. She suffers from severe osteoporosis and keeps to herself, getting her food at the Food Bank and parking in different places.
When her dogs wanted to play with my dogs, she called them back inside. Their eyes bulged but they were quiet and obedient.
As a reporter, I failed. Although as a newsman I have approached a president and angry organized crime figures, I didn”t connect with this lady. She was polite, curt and got back into her van before I made my introduction.
I am rarely tongue-tied, but here I wondered if I should invade her privacy and call social services. She seemed fragile, yet independent. The dogs were waggers, not watchdogs, obviously both loved and trained. What if I wrote about her and gave her name and something happened to her? There are many vultures in the world, after all (although my experience has been most don”t read the newspaper).
What if I “helped” and she lost her beloved dogs?
This kind of conflict is what volunteers from local charities and churches face every day. It”s the kind of decision that county social workers have to make. I”ve been watching outcomes and they are often painful and temporary.
I haven”t seen this lady for a few weeks in her usual parking places or at the Food Bank. I”m hoping she found relatives, but it would be so easy for someone like her to get lost. I never even got her name in all the times I saw her at the Food Bank.
I”ll keep you up to date on her and on other people, whose names I will use and whose stories I will tell. They are not all pretty, noble or nice. But most all of them truly need the food our readers help provide.
The Food Bank, 910 N. Franklin, Fort Bragg, is open every weekday but Tuesday. There are special senior hours Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10:45 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. The Food Bank is open from 4 to 6 p.m. on Thursdays, a time designed for working people.
For information, call 964-9404.
Season of Sharing
The purpose of the Advocate-News and The Mendocino Beacon”s annual Season of Sharing fund drive is to raise money the Food Bank can use year-round, not just during the holidays when donations tend to flow most freely.
This year”s target is an ambitious $36,000, which would bring the total raised since the first fund drive in 1995 to just over $200,000.
The Community Foundation of Mendocino County administers the Season of Sharing free of charge as a courtesy to the newspapers. Every cent goes to the Food Bank.
Checks should be addressed to the Community Foundation of Mendocino County (CFMC), and mailed to newspaper at P.O. Box 1188, Fort Bragg, 95437, or dropped by our office, located at 450 N. Franklin St., Fort Bragg.
If you have any questions about the fund drive, call us at 964-5642. The fund-raiser runs through Dec. 31.
Donors” names are printed each week, unless you ask to remain anonymous.
