Improve Disaster Readiness to Solve Hunger

Feeding San Diego has just ended our 2018 fiscal year and has accomplished some fantastic milestones thanks to our dedicated supporters. Because of the generosity of community donors like you, Feeding San Diego was able to provide 27.2 million meals in San Diego and Imperial Valley to families, kids, and seniors struggling with hunger over the last year. In the last fiscal year, we have seen steady growth – increasing distributions of healthy meals, raising private community support, working with community partners to close the meal gap through innovative solutions, and increasing awareness of the need and our mission to the local region.

Disaster relief and emergency preparedness have been hallmarks of Feeding San Diego’s services since our founding and continue to be an ongoing area of development. We supported several disaster-relief efforts this year including:

• Provided CalFresh support to those affected by the Ventura County Fire.
• Spearheaded a local online fundraising campaign to support Hurricane Harvey and provided two weeks of operational support to the Houston Food Bank, sending our COO to help lead volunteer efforts at their distribution site.
• Provided additional food distributions to the neighborhoods affected by the power outages in rural east county San Diego, Fall 2017.
• Provided supplementary food distributions to the neighbors affected by the Lilac Fires, February 2018. The Feeding San Diego communications team oversaw a massive traditional and social media effort to help residents access our emergency food distributions and other community resources.
• Organized a fundraising campaign to support meal distributions happening around the Safe Camp Project and the temporary housing structures staged in San Diego in response to the Hepatitis A outbreak.
• Further organized Feeding San Diego’s Disaster Preparedness and Response Team; sought guidance from a Feeding America disaster-response mentor and began shaping an extensive disaster plan. We learned that the best way we can prepare our facility for a disaster is to install a generator hookup – we’ve assessed costs and continue to strategize our fundraising efforts around this and other important needs.
• In response to the West Fire in Alpine, July 2018, Feeding San Diego was able to rapidly organize and host weekly distributions for the hundreds who were evacuated, including 34 families who lost their homes. Support continues for this rural community.

Thank you for helping Feeding San Diego create a hunger-free and healthy community for all of our neighbors in need, especially in increased times of stress.