Amidst the chaos of COVID-19, head of Merced County Food Bank says thanks for help

As all of us are being affected by the impact of COVID-19, and those of us at Merced County Food Bank would like to acknowledge and express our gratitude for the many people, businesses, social clubs and public sectors who have reached out with financial, volunteer and advocacy support. In addition, we’d like to be transparent on a recent financial decision we made in the interest of our network of partner agencies.

MCFB and our partner agencies have seen the recent impact of the virus on the working families of our community firsthand. All of us have seen the number of people seeking assistance increase by 300-400% over the last six weeks. As a result of the impact on our partner agencies and our capacity to acquire and distribute food, we have been actively working on enhancing our partnerships with our long-term partners, and developing new partnerships to address the significant demand for services — not only for the short-term, but for the long-term economic impact that will affect our community.

As I mentioned in our Christmas thank you letter, this community and our supporters are extraordinarily generous, and they fully recognize (through word and action) that we as citizens are responsible for the care of those in our communities. In other words, we understand and actively support the biblical principle of covenant.

That biblical principle of covenant provides a morally informed agreement among various parties to ratify and establish a long-term, mutually affirming relationship — which acts in the best interests of others over self or state.

That principle applies not only to individuals but organizations as well. While we at MCFB have a responsibility to maintain a sound fiscal program, we also have a responsibility to act in the best interests of the community, and our community of partner agencies who are on the front lines feeding people in need. In other words, we have a double bottom line — fiscal and social.

To that end, as the effects of the virus started to impact our state a couple months ago, we made a conscious effort to fund raise not only for MCFB itself, but for our partner agencies also — knowing they would be hard-hit by the short-term and long-term effects of COVID-19.

Some of our long-standing supporters, such as the Central California Alliance for Health and the United Way of Merced County, jumped on board to help our efforts to assist our partners. Due to their direct support, MCFB is able to help our nonprofit partner agencies through these difficult times by providing financial support to them from May 2020 through April 2021, by eliminating the shared maintenance cost during that time (with some limitations on volume of food per agency).

The shared maintenance cost model, implemented by nearly every food bank system across the nation, provides products to partner agencies at significantly reduced costs while helping the food banks offset operating costs. Our shared maintenance cost is 17.5 cents per pound for products — regardless whether it’s steak or butter. Fresh produce was always free of charge. The shared maintenance revenue covers about 21% of our annual operating budget. The value of the elimination of the shared maintenance fee (during May 20 – April 21) is roughly $250,000.

We understand that some of our supporters may view this as fiscally irresponsible of MCFB, and under normal circumstances we would not normally engage in such a decision. However, these are not normal times, and our partner agencies are being stretched to the limit, overwhelmed by demand, and in some cases, have closed their doors because they can’t meet the demand from a supply or financial position.

Our mission is: To improve the health and well-being of Merced & Mariposa County residents affected by hunger; through the acquisition, storage, and distribution of nutritious food. Anything that effects our ability to distribute food through our channels and/or our partner agencies, effects our efficacy as a network. Therefore, we felt it was in the best interest of the food bank network for us to think beyond our self-interest as an agency, and to the larger need of the network itself.

Consequently, we felt the best course was to forgo the shared maintenance fee for a year, to solidify the footing of our partner agencies who are being pulled in so many directions. Additionally, we felt we would be in a better position to raise funds to support that decision than our partner agencies would be.

Many of you have been supporting MCFB, and I want to assure you that the funds secured for our partner agencies came from CCAH and the United Way, and all the donations we have been receiving from the community, businesses, corporate and foundations are going to assist us in acquiring food to address the significant increase in demand for food.

Demand is substantial (400% of normal). In addition, our need for financial support is elevated because of our need to compete in the retail market for food now, when previously we had much more efficient methods of acquisition. Currently, we are anticipating the financial cost needed to meet the purchased food demand over the coming year to be approximately $800,000. Due to the generous support of partners such as Feeding America, Sunlight Giving Foundation, Dignity Health, Foster Farms, Travis Credit Union, Yosemite Farm Credit, Merced Community Foundation, Lions Clubs, Rotary Clubs, Merced County Association of Realtors, Patelco Credit Union, PG&E, Pick-n-Pull, and hundreds of individual donors (we’ll recognize on social media shortly), we are over half way to that goal and we are confident we will meet the goal.

All of us at MCFB and our partner agencies would like to say “thank you all” for your support and recognition of the need to fight hunger in our community together. In the coming weeks we will acknowledge our supporters on social media in a more consistent manner. Until then, I’d like to personally thank the countless number of teachers, professors, nurses, and neighbors who came in and shared their stimulus checks with us. Those moments are deeply meaningful and provide encouragement to our staff and agencies — by letting them know the community is behind our efforts.