Holiday Basket Program Connects Community

By Arielle Golden, Programs Manager

The Community Resource Center (CRC) is a small but mighty Feeding San Diego partner. The center is tucked away between downtown Encinitas and the Pacific Ocean, providing diverse resources for the North County community including domestic violence services, emergency and transitional housing assistance, a food pantry, and classes. Every holiday season, the CRC takes over a large building in the Del Mar Fairgrounds to provide a free holiday shopping experience called the Holiday Baskets Program to 1,000 North County families facing food insecurity.

Since 1983, CRC has operated this program, which at its inception provided a basket of food to families and now provides much more. Each family “shops” for food, clothing, necessities and gifts, receiving a value of $300 or more of items in their basket. The resources CRC provides through their annual holiday program include more than 120,000 pounds of food.

The longevity of the program has enabled CRC to connect with recipients of the Holiday Baskets program from years ago.

Gabriela “Gaby” Baes received a Holiday Basket when she was eight years old. Twenty years later, she works as an educator with the San Diego County Office of Education’s Migrant Education Program and brings her students in to volunteer for this annual program. While volunteering, she encountered Linda Hayes, another volunteer. They began talking and Gabriela discovered that Linda had personally delivered a Holiday Basket to her family 20 years prior.

As the program has expanded, it has not always been easy to manage. Distributing forty pound boxes of food to more than 1,000 families, plus warm outerwear, toys and other holiday necessities is no easy feat. The program has a dedicated group of long-term volunteers and community supporters who are crucial to picking up donations, packing boxes, setting up the event and distributing food. The holiday season is always a busy time for partners working with families facing hunger, and FSD appreciates the hard work of our partners to serve the San Diego community.