Food Banks Get Disaster Program Fund Leftovers PDF Print E-mail

Excerpted from the San Jose Mercury News
By Sandra Gonzales, Mercury News
July 3, 2008

Jim Beall didn't stand idly by as the souring economy and rising gas prices jacked up the cost of food for working families. He found more state money to help our food banks. The result: hundreds of thousands of pounds for food for their pantries.

California's food banks just got an extra helping with $1 million in state money - $46,000 of which will go to food pantries in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.

Tuesday, the state Department of Social Services announced that the money would be released to feed California's low-income families.

Working with statewide food bank organizations, Assemblyman Jim Beall, D-San Jose, helped free $1 million remaining from an emergency fund set aside in 2007 for the state's citrus freeze disaster. The bill that set up the fund specified that any unused money would be used for emergency food needs.

Santa Clara and San Mateo counties' share of the money will help pay for 390,000 to 1.7 million pounds of California-grown produce, according to Jessica Bartholow, director of programs for the California Association of Food Banks.

Both the association and California Emergency Foodlink enlisted Beall to assist them in tapping funds to aid food pantries, hard hit by the souring economy, rising unemployment and high gas prices.