Looking Ahead to a New Calendar Year: A Q&A with Feeding San Diego’s Director of Programs, Sam Duke

A new calendar year means new goals and new challenges. At Feeding San Diego, we’re looking ahead to the many ways we’ll continue supporting our community. We sat down for a Q&A with Feeding San Diego’s director of programs, Sam Duke, to get his take on the coming year. Sam joined Feeding San Diego in 2014 as a volunteer project lead. Since then, he has held various roles, including volunteer coordinator, programs coordinator, programs manager, and senior volunteer manager. As director of programs, Sam heads a team of 15 in charge of keeping all of Feeding San Diego’s programs running.

Sam Duke (right), with Feeding San Diego’s CEO Bob Kamensky and Tracy Owens, senior programs manager of Support the Enlisted Project

Q: What’s a top priority for Feeding San Diego’s programs team in 2025?

A: Our focus this year is expanding our school pantry program. Of the more than 350,000 people in San Diego County who are food insecure, over 100,000 are children. The school pantry program helps ensure families with kids have consistent access to nutritious food by setting up no-cost food distributions on campus. Pantries are typically held twice a month and managed by school staff and parent volunteers. Parents can easily pick up a variety of nutritious ingredients during pick up or drop off, empowering them to create meals at home that support their children’s growth and development. The program currently reaches as far north as Oceanside and as far south as Otay Mesa. It also serves rural communities like Boulevard in the Mountain Empire and Pauma Valley near Palomar Mountain.

Currently, Feeding San Diego has about 58 school pantries throughout the county. 17 of those were opened in 2024. However, we still have 26 schools on the waitlist for their own pantry, and the list continues to grow, indicating the high need for nutrition assistance at schools across the county. Our top priority this year is to take more schools off the waitlist to better serve families with children. To grow the program, our organization has undertaken a major fundraising campaign to increase its operating budget.

Community members receive food at the Berry Elementary School Pantry opened in October 2024.

Q: Any other major priorities this new calendar year?

A. We’re focusing on three other programs in 2025. The first is deepening our relationships with healthcare providers to provide medically tailored groceries as part of our Feeding Wellness program. At Feeding San Diego, we believe food is medicine. With the prevalence of diet-related chronic diseases, we prioritize getting nutritious, healthy food to all communities. Our hope is that by building strong partnerships with healthcare organizations, we can better serve community members who need nutritious foods to help deal with medical conditions.

The second is growing our Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) to expand rural meal service during the summer months when schools are closed. Over 240,000 students in San Diego County rely on free or reduced-price meals while in school. When school closes, they lose access to nutritious meals. Feeding San Diego’s summer meal program serves many of those students, but we need to increase our presence in rural communities.

The third is our Feeding Heroes program. We’re looking to continue to grow new partnerships with military partners. For example, we’re targeting partnerships with Veterans Affairs (VA) and Navy commands. Studies show that nearly a quarter (24%) of active-duty service members were food insecure in 2020. With over 1.2 million San Diegans, 37% of our population, having direct ties to the military, we believe it’s important to partner with organizations serving this community to ensure all military families and veterans can access nutritious food.

Q: What demographics are Feeding San Diego focused on addressing food insecurity for in 2025?

A: As I’ve touched on before, three of the groups we’re focused on in 2025 are local students and their families, medical patients, and members of the military, their families, and veterans. We’re also focused on expanding our resources in East County, the Mountain Empire, and rural areas.

Q: What challenges do you anticipate for the coming year?

A: One key challenge we’re facing is the end of the ARPA grant. Over the past three years, we received a total of $2,250,000 from a grant created by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). These funds helped support over 1,470 households served by school pantries and Feeding San Diego’s backpack program, which provides bags of food to kids to ensure they have nutritious food over the weekends. They were also used to purchase assorted pantry staples like beans and rice to assemble food boxes that were distributed throughout the county. With the end of these funds, we’ll need to find alternative funding to help make up the difference.

Another challenge is that donations are down, for all nonprofits, not just for Feeding San Diego. In the years directly after the COVID-19 pandemic, we saw an incredible outpouring of support. With so many San Diegans out of work and facing serious health issues, the need was obvious, and we were amazed at what our community achieved together. What people may not know is that we’re continuing to see long lines at our food distributions. There are still a lot of San Diegans who need support. It’s a balancing act to continue meeting the increased need for food resources with both less funding from the government and fewer donations from our community.

A third challenge is emergency response. Big weather events, like the 2024 flooding or the extreme fires in Los Angeles, are difficult or impossible to predict. When they happen, we have to quickly redirect resources and mobilize the community. Feeding San Diego has a history of responding to emergencies. However, they always involve unique challenges that disrupt our day-to-day operations.

Q: How can the community get involved in the new calendar year?

A: There are so many ways! Volunteering is a great way to get involved. I actually headed up the volunteer department for many years and know firsthand that what is accomplished through our programs is simply not possible without our amazing volunteers. We have food sorting shifts six days a week at our Sorrento Valley headquarters, as well as volunteer opportunities at our food distributions and with our partner organizations. You can also do different tasks like pick up food donations or help check in neighbors at the Feeding San Diego Marketplace. At volunteer shifts, you can see firsthand the amount of food Feeding San Diego rescues from going to waste and the impact made by instead redistributing that food to the people who need it most.

A group of volunteers packs food boxes at Feeding San Diego’s distribution center in Sorrento Valley.

Donating funds is an amazing way to support our mission. Our purchasing power and the reach of our vast food rescue network allow us to maximize your donations. Every $10 you donate to Feeding San Diego helps provide 20 meals to the community. If you can commit to a monthly donation of any size, you can help us to plan, budget more effectively, and respond to hunger concerns as they arise throughout the year. You can also donate food by starting a virtual or in-person food drive. We also are always looking for food donor partners, like supermarkets, farmers, and other food manufacturers. If you are, or know, someone who is able to donate food, our team can set you up with MealConnect to make donating food easy.

Basically, just stay engaged. Write to your elected officials, encouraging them to support bills that fund food rescue and hunger relief. Use your voice to spread awareness of our mission, whether on social media or in person. Invite friends or family to join you when you volunteer. Turn your birthday into a fundraiser. However you get involved, know you’re making a difference for the hundreds of thousands of San Diegans facing food insecurity.