Food Banks Say Donations Up as Holidays Near

THOUSAND OAKS — Bill Figge loads up a supermarket cart with a 10-pound turkey, loaf of honey-wheat bread, can of baked beans, another of mushroom soup, a pie crust and apples.

Figge is not inside a grocery store, but rather a one-story wooden home in Thousand Oaks, where he is a volunteer for the east county’s food pantry, Manna. He gathers Thanksgiving dinner ingredients, which will be provided free to low-income residents through 6 p.m. today.

“My God! We’re so busy today, we can’t even stop to turn around,” Figge said.

Manna is experiencing a record-breaking year for food donations--especially turkeys.

While Figge hands out the holiday dinners to needy residents who wait in the front room, volunteers in the back lot unload heaps of food into three nearly filled bins.

After weeks of fretting, officials for Manna and Ventura County’s primary food bank, Food Share Inc. in Oxnard, say they are pleased with the last-minute rush of donations that have filled their pantries to record levels.

“If you’d have been here a week ago, you would have been shocked,” said Manna’s administrator, Pauline Saterbo, a 14-year veteran of the organization. “The shelves were extremely bare. . . . Now the food is coming in. This is our best year ever.”

While Manna typically collects supplies for 200 to 300 Thanksgiving turkey dinners each year, the group has already collected 862 of the 1,000 dinners it anticipated needing this year. The dinners typically include turkey, mashed potatoes, bread, stuffing and pies.

Food Share, which usually collects enough to give out as many as 200 Thanksgiving dinners, reported gathering 465 of its own 1,000-dinner goal. Its tally was given a congressional boost Tuesday when Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley) personally delivered 100 turkeys and 100 pumpkin pies.

“This is the best year we’ve ever had and we’re very, very appreciative to the public,” said Dan Williams, Food Share’s volunteer coordinator for the past four years.

Yet, while Food Share’s receipt of turkeys has been exceptionally high, its canned food donations have been dismal, said Jeff Dronkers, who coordinates the organization’s holiday canned food drive. The group has so far collected only 11,500 pounds from food barrels placed with community groups as well as at 19 Vons supermarkets throughout the county.

“Last year at this time, we probably had three times as much,” Dronkers said. “I have been trying to rack my brains to figure out why it is we’re so much lower than last season.”

Both organizations, which collect food year-round, make a special effort during the holiday season so that they can provide an increasing number of low-income families and individuals with enough for complete Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.

Food Share collects the food, then distributes the meals to nearly 200 nonprofit agencies throughout the county, such as Catholic Charities offices in Ventura and Moorpark and the American Red Cross.

Manna, which serves Conejo Valley residents, hands out its donations at its office--in a converted home in Thousand Oaks--and asks that low-income residents stop by to receive their meals.

Many of the organization’s food donations this year came from students of the Conejo Unified School District, who easily get into a holiday mood.

“Have a great day now and 4 ever,” wrote one student on a purple card attached to a box full of Thanksgiving treats. “P.S. don’t eat too much.”

FYI

Those wishing to donate turkeys, canned goods and other ingredients for a Thanksgiving dinner can drop off their food today at Manna, 3020 Crescent Way, Thousand Oaks, 497-4959, or Food Share Inc., 4156 N. Southbank Road, Oxnard, 983-7100.