After almost 50 years, Elk Grove Food Bank finally close to getting a permanent home
It’s only a plywood sign on an industrial side street, but Marie Jachino will tell you it’s about the most beautiful sight she’s seen.
After years of makeshift trailers and rented warehouses, the sign on Kent Street marks what will soon be a permanent home for a food bank that has served Elk Grove for nearly 50 years.
Crews plan to break ground in early May on a new Elk Grove Food Bank Services building at the east Elk Grove site, a short drive from its present Dino Drive location, with sights set on a September opening.
Jachino, the food bank’s executive director, is excited about the plans for a space twice its size now that will be able to serve twice as many people.
She knows — as city and local leaders know just as well — that the need has grown.
Hunger and food insecurity, exacerbated by the pandemic’s toll on jobs and businesses in an increasingly expensive Elk Grove, had mayor Bobbie Singh-Allen sounding the alarm.
“Food insecurity is a big deal,” Singh-Allen told The Bee. “Our community is hurting. Until our working families can get back on their feet, we’re going to be seeing food insecure families.”
The pandemic deepened the distress for a growing number of Elk Grove’s working families, children and the city’s older residents. The food bank was asked to respond in ways it rarely had to before.
The city of Elk Grove gave the organization $206,000 in emergency funding, money that went to help the nonprofit make payroll, hire a couple extra hands and buy more food.
Elk Grove would leverage millions of dollars more in state and federal grants for the city’s Great Plates Delivered program in which local restaurants provided meals to 500 Elk Grove seniors during the height of the lockdown, a lifeline for both restaurateurs and the homebound during the pandemic’s darkest days.
1.1 million meals served in 2020
“The changes that have occurred since March of last year have skyrocketed here — the increase in food assistance, the demand,” Jachino said in March as part of Elk Grove’s annual state of the city address. “We’ve seen people who are unemployed, who have lost their jobs, businesses that have closed.”
Jachino, in a later interview with The Sacramento Bee, spelled out the demand in stark terms.
In Elk Grove, “five of 10 people never used the food bank before this year. They’re service workers, small business people. Children. We’ve had a 44% increase in children this past year; seniors, it’s 33%,” she said.
Jachino says the demand translated into more than 1.1 million meals served by Elk Grove Food Bank Services in 2020.
“There’s need here in Elk Grove. There really is no face of hunger or food insecurity,” Jachino said. “There is a real need here in Elk Grove that has gone unnoticed for some time. The silver lining of COVID is that it’s brought awareness to food insecurity everywhere.
“This is a middle-class, suburban area (but) in 2020, we were 142% over 2019 — 4,000 people signed up (for services).” Jachino said the 4,000 registrants represent some 13,000 people because many are representing their households.
The number of children “was the biggest impact last year,” she said. Nearly 3,600 more children used food bank services in 2020 than in 2019. “It’s been devastating — kind of daunting.”
New facility will have much-needed equipment
Groundbreaking for the food bank’s first permanent home in its 47-year history is weeks away, Jachino said. The land at 9888 Kent St., is a two-acre plot with an existing 4,300 square-foot building and is owned by the food bank. A 9,900 square-foot warehouse with more than 600 square feet of cold storage — a crucial first for the food bank — will also be part of the new facility.
“We used to have to beg for cold storage space from everyone in Elk Grove,” Jachino said. “This is amazing. That’s one of the greatest gifts.” Republic Services, the city’s waste disposal service, came through with funding for the cold storage.
“We live here. Many of us grew up around here. We want to be able to help,” Republic general manager Tony Perez said.
Assemblyman Jim Cooper, D-Elk Grove, secured more than $4 million in grant funding for the new food bank services building in 2018.
State lawmakers “agreed they needed a new space,” the Elk Grove lawmaker said. “It’s a big footprint (but) hunger knows no boundaries.
“There’s need and this is important work. It has an impact on people’s lives and it gives (the food bank) the opportunity to do things. They have fed and clothed a lot of people. A lot of working families have had to go to the food bank. They need help. This is a regionwide thing,” Cooper said.
As the coronavirus pandemic lingers on, for struggling families “right now, it’s about survivability,” Cooper said. “It’s about food and rent, trying to put gas in their car. It’s about survivability at this point.”
Jachino is already thinking about the space and what new services the food bank will provide.
“We’re going to be able to serve more people. We will be able to have more food, more fresh produce — seniors love that — education classes. Maybe down the road, a workforce program,” Jachino said. “After 47 years, it’s phenomenal for the food bank. It’s amazing that this is happening — that we have a lot of support. This is for the community and without the community, we wouldn’t be able to do this.”
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