The San Mateo County Office of Education (SMCOE) is partnering with the Second Harvest Food Bank of Silicon Valley to host an emergency food drive throughout the month of November to support families who have been affected by the reduction in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding.
The food drive, which will last at least through Thanksgiving and may be extended until the end of the year, is “designed to help school communities share surplus food safely and responsibly with families in need, while connecting San Mateo County families to trusted sources of support,” according to SMCOE.
“We are deeply concerned about our students and their families who don’t have enough to eat. We know that students don’t always have enough food at home, so while free meals at school make a difference, families still need food at home,” said Crystal Leach, the superintendent of the Sequoia Union High School District.
Members of the public can donate food to the County Office at 101 Twin Dolphin Drive in Redwood City between the hours of 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. All non-perishable food items are accepted. They can also make monetary donations to Second Harvest Food Bank directly.
“We clearly recognize that education is the core of what we do. We have a responsibility to our community to look at things outside of the classroom that impact how a student can engage in school. So as educators, we felt that the food drive was a very necessary thing at the moment because of the lapse of benefits,” said Hector Camacho Jr., the Executive Director of Equity and Social Justice at SMCOE.
Camacho Jr. was the person who first came up with the idea of the emergency food drive in collaboration with Second Harvest Food Bank. Camacho Jr. is grateful to be partnering with an organization that serves the community so well — according to Second Harvest Food Bank itself, one that donates over 11 million pounds of food each month to over 500,000 people in Silicon Valley.
“Every educator in this county cares about the students that we serve. What was different about this time was that with the lapse in SNAP and Cal Fresh benefits, there really was no time to go out and say, ‘What are the needs?’ The needs were very clear. We needed food,” Camacho Jr. said.
According to Marco Chavez, the Deputy Superintendent of Educational Services at SMCOE, 35,000 people in San Mateo County are affected by the cut in SNAP funding. Despite the alleviation of the government shutdown on Nov. 12, millions of families across the nation have not been receiving adequate nutrition for almost half of November.
“Teachers and staff at the schools may be the first to notice or hear that a student is struggling with food insecurity, so we are witnesses who can tell the community that help is needed, and how they can help. I heard from many employees expressing concern for their students, so it was an easy decision to publicize the SMCOE food drive,” Leach said.
SMCOE works with the San Mateo County Human Services Agency to ensure that every child, regardless of background or extenuating circumstances, receives “excellence and equity in education.” SMCOE educators support 84,000 students across 23 school districts.
“We can only learn about what the community needs by being in the community. We have to say we’re going to work to try to solve that problem with you, as opposed to for you. Being able to do this at a county-wide level is a really great opportunity, because not only am I still working in SUHSD, I also get to work on the coast side in Pescadero, in Half Moon Bay, or all the way up in Pacifica,” Camacho Jr. said.
