About the Nonprofit
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Mission:
Central California Food Bank is the region’s largest nonprofit organization focused solely on ending hunger. Our mission is to fight hunger by gathering and distributing food, engaging in partnerships that advance self-sufficiency, and providing community leadership on issues related to hunger. Through these efforts, we envision a hunger-free Central California.
Programs and Services:
Through our comprehensive hunger-relief programs and services, Central California Food Bank provides food to more than 280,000 people each month, including nearly 100,000 children throughout Fresno, Madera, Tulare, Kings, and Kern Counties of California.
Direct services include our Neighborhood Market and Mobile Pantry fresh produce programs, BackPack program which supplies children with food to take home every Friday, School Pantry program at local elementary and middle schools, CalFresh (SNAP) Outreach program, and USDA Emergency Food Assistance program.
Through our partner Pantry Program, we collaborate with and provide food to more than 220 partner food pantries administered by other local nonprofit organizations and schools. Our partner organizations include community centers, K-12 schools and higher education institutions, faith-based organizations, senior centers, and more.
History:
The organization began in 1992 as Food Opportunities Organization & Distribution (FOOD, Inc.), doing business as Community Food Bank. A small group of men and women were dedicated to seeing that people in the city of Fresno did not go hungry, so they started gathering and storing food in a rented corner of a small warehouse at the Fresno Fairgrounds. Twenty-five years later, the organization has grown exponentially, expanding to serve five counties and becoming the largest hunger-relief organization in the region.
In our community, we are known for reducing hunger, making healthy food more accessible to people in low-income and rural neighborhoods, and advocating for hunger-relief on a regional and national level. Last year our donors and volunteers helped us distribute nearly 40 million pounds of food, providing access to over 33 million meals in Central California. Two-thirds of those meals were distributed by our strong agency network of local nonprofits who also want to see hunger eliminated in our community.
Target Population:
Central California Food Bank aims to serve low-income families with children, seniors, immigrants, veterans, and college students who are under-served and disadvantaged by poverty, food insecurity, and the lack of access to healthy foods. We distribute food in specific neighborhoods designated as low-income census tracts by the U.S. Census Bureau in order to make the greatest impact.
Community Need:
Our service area is home to a few of California’s top agriculture-producing counties, yet it has one of the highest levels of hunger in the United States. According to the Food Research and Action Center (2018), the Fresno region has the third worst food hardship rate in the nation at 22%. This is significantly higher than California’s statewide food hardship rate of 14.1%.
Fresno County suffers from chronic poverty – currently 22.1% – much higher than the national average of 14%. While poverty inherently restricts people from acquiring the food they need, people living in rural communities face the added challenge of limited geographical access to foods that are healthy. Low-income neighborhoods and rural communities often lack full-service grocery stores, and are instead saturated with corner stores and fast-food outlets serving unhealthy foods.
Fresh produce-
Our fresh produce programs address both the issues of hunger and the lack of access to healthy foods in low-income and rural communities by providing food when and where food-insecure households need it most - directly in their community every month. Having access to fresh, healthy food gives these households the ability to spend more of their limited financial resources on other essential living costs such as rent and utilities. When families do not have to worry as much about where their next meal will come from, they can focus more energy on raising themselves out of poverty.
Children-
The number of children living in poverty in our service area is astonishing. Data show that Fresno, Madera, and Tulare Counties have childhood poverty rates of 39%, 33% and 37%, respectively, indicating that more than 1 in 3 kids in our service area struggle with hunger. These rates are well above the national childhood poverty rate of 22%. This results in 176,900 children living in poverty in Fresno, Tulare, and Madera Counties combined.
With increased access to food, children are able to focus more on school than on their growling tummy, have more energy for positive social interactions, and experience better overall health. When kids are healthy and their food needs are met, the opportunity for academic achievement is enhanced, improving their chances for breaking the cycle of poverty and realizing economic mobility
