While the amount of donations to the Community Food Bank of San Benito County took a dip during the economic downturn, giving has picked up this year, said Mary Anne Hughes, executive director of the organization.
“We have gotten more donations this winter for food,” she said late last week. “Funding seems to be growing as well. Things are a little bit better.”
She noted how the 12 Days of Christmas campaign raised about $85,000, or more than $20,000 more than the prior year.
While the food bank awaits a new 13,000-square-foot building on San Felipe Road in Hollister with a warehouse and offices—the hope is to have it built in a year—the relatively new San Juan Bautista distribution center at 201 Third St. is continuing to see increased demand for its weekly “Brown Bag” program.
The food bank opened the San Juan site a year and a half ago with 30 families and now serves about 125 bags weekly, from the 500 bags given out countywide.
Before opening a center in San Juan, the group had distributed out of a back of a truck for many years. The San Juan Bautista Brown Bag distribution is 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. Thursdays. Participants received brown bags with extra cans and dried goods Dec. 18 because of the holidays.
