Partnership with San Diego County Library Provides Food Resources to Families During the Summer Months

Libraries are community hubs. Many free resources and services are available at local libraries, so why not food? During the summer months when kids lose access to school meals, Feeding San Diego partners with the San Diego County Library to provide summer meals or food pantries at branches throughout the county. When schools are closed for the summer, there’s a lack of access to educational resources and programs but also food, because many students and families rely on school meals provided to them. Libraries that offer a free summer meals program close that gap by providing a safe space for families to get connected to academic resources as well as nutritious food provided by Feeding San Diego.

Meeting the Need

“We started to see that there was a natural fit for food access in our communities. In some communities, especially our rural locations, the library is the only government building in that community. They serve many roles, which means they offer food access, voting, things like that. They become a very trusted center of the community,” explains Jodi dela Pena, Youth Services Manager, Librarian III at San Diego County Library. “To offer food access at vital times during the year strengthens that trust with our community members. They know the food coming here is nutritious and it’s free. Everything is free at the library all the time. We take great pride in that trust and offering very good services that they can rely on.”

This summer, Feeding San Diego is providing five days of ready-to-eat prepackaged meals weekly for kids at rural libraries in Jacumba, Ramona, and Valley Center. We are also hosting food pantries at libraries in Spring Valley, Lakeside, Borrego Springs, Poway, Imperial Beach, and El Cajon. Families like Margarita’s are thankful to have this easy access to food.

“I’m here with my son at the county library in Casa de Oro. During the summer it’s really hard because I do have another daughter at home who’s out of school. Any help during the summer is a big, big help. Something other than junk food. We need nutritious food. We get fruits and vegetables here that he enjoys. You guys are helping us get access to those things that are expensive. Any little bit helps.”

A Healthy Partnership

There are a number of challenges that community sites face when trying to offer food programs. The primary one is that organizations like libraries don’t have the resources or expertise in sourcing and distributing food. That’s where Feeding San Diego comes in. We provide food at no cost to the libraries and provide food safety training and guidance for how to best get the food out into the community.

“It’s such an amazing partnership. I would never be able to do the 14 sites that we do, some of them year round, without the assistance of Feeding San Diego. Last year we served over 88,000 people. This year, we’ll probably exceed that number because we’ve expanded by six to seven additional services. It really measures the impact that we have in our communities,” Jodi shares. “Providing a service in a community that really levels the playing field as far as economics go, especially here in Southern California where so many things are very expensive—housing, gas, transportation—if we can intervene in a way that makes it more accessible to live here in a region that I love, it’s such a huge thing that we can offer.”

Finding Resources

Feeding San Diego’s library sites run through August. In addition to its free summer meals programming, Feeding San Diego provides no-cost food distributions throughout San Diego County year-round in partnership with other non-profits, faith-based, and community organizations. You can find other distributions near you on our Find Food Map. For additional resources, please call 2-1-1.