How to Join In on the Holiday Giving Season with Feeding San Diego
Holiday giving season is here! This is a time to cherish what you have and give back to others. It’s a beautiful time of year when hearts are wide open and the community comes together. The Feeding San Diego community is no exception. While we offer hunger-relief programs and accept donations year-round, November and December are always incredibly busy when it comes to both getting help and giving help. Therefore, if you are looking for ways to get involved this holiday giving season, we have a list of ideas of how to give back this month:
To Support Kids:
Through targeted programs like our School Pantry Program and Backpack Program, kids attending title one schools across the county get access to nutritious meals. Their families benefit, too, as the programs support families experiencing hunger on evenings and weekends. Your monetary gifts supports our hunger-relief programs that focus on children, like the School Pantry Program and the Backpack program. You can also come into to volunteer at Feeding San Diego’s headquarters in Sorrento Valley for a food sorting volunteer shift. It’s highly likely that you’ll be sorting and packing food to go out through the School Pantry Program. You get to see for yourself the amazing food that goes out to our local kids!
Families receive food at a School Pantry at Mendoza Elementary School in Imperial Beach.
To Support Active Duty, Military Families, and Veterans:
Members of the military and veteran community shouldn’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from, but the sad reality is that some do. Our Feeding Heroes initiative supports junior enlisted active-duty members of the military with families at home. In partnership with local nonprofits serving veterans and military members, Feeding San Diego seeks to serve and support members of our military and veterans in bringing nutritious meals home. We work with local nonprofits serving veterans and military members to meet this need. Through Feeding Heroes, we provide food to partner agencies, schools, and mobile pantries. This holiday giving season, your monetary gifts can directly support our Feeding Heroes initiative.
To Support Seniors:
With inflation still high, seniors living on a fixed income are finding it challenging to afford their basic necessities. Your generosity helps seniors not have to choose between nutritious food and paying their bills. This includes seniors living on social security. If you’d like to serve seniors in the San Diego community, consider volunteering at a mobile pantry. The Mobile Pantry Program helps address hunger by providing nutritious, healthy food to communities in the rural North and East parts of San Diego County. The program is critical in supporting food deserts and communities without existing agency partner networks. Our mobile pantries are run by volunteers and there are opportunities throughout the county.
Smiling volunteers gather at a food distribution where they work together to check in attendees and sort and distribute food.
To Support the Environment:
Simply put, food in landfills produces methane gas, a leading contributor to climate change. 76% of the food Feeding San Diego distributes is rescued. This means that it’s surplus edible food donated by food donors. Above all, your gifts make this food rescue and hunger-relief work possible. We invite you to come to a food sorting volunteer shift at Feeding San Diego’s headquarters in Sorrento Valley. You’ll see firsthand all the food that gets donated to our organization from farms, companies, food manufacturers, and more. You can also volunteer to be a food rescue driver! You’ll drive one of Feeding San Diego’s orange refrigerated vans around town to pick up food donations from our donors.
