For the Second Harvest of Silicon Valley meals financial institution in Santa Clara County, the California Nationwide Guard had been “lifesavers” through the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, mentioned CEO Leslie Bacho.
Some 200 Guard troops crammed in for the nonprofit’s lots of of volunteers who had been underneath stay-at-home orders. They packed, loaded and distributed meals to individuals who immediately discovered themselves out of labor or in determined want of assist to feed themselves and their households.
“Just in this moment there’s a lot of fear and concern in the community,” Bacho mentioned. “We would be having folks who are associated with law enforcement at sites who might scare people away,” she mentioned with evident remorse, given her regard for Nationwide Guard efforts in March 2020.
Bacho mentioned she might see Nationwide Guard troops serving to out of their warehouses, although the meals financial institution at the moment has sufficient volunteers at these areas.
Equally, Caitlyn Sly, CEO of the Meals Financial institution of Contra Costa and Solano, mentioned they don’t have a necessity for Nationwide Guard assist proper now and have a tendency to have loads of volunteers through the vacation season. However the state of affairs might change within the coming weeks if the shutdown continues, Slay mentioned. There are some 98,000 households of their two-county service space that received’t be getting funds from CalFresh, California’s model of the federal Supplemental Diet Help Program (SNAP). “We’re grateful for the offer,” she mentioned. “If we end up needing it, we will call upon it.”
However, like Bacho, Sly mentioned her meals financial institution can be cautious about having federal troops in any public-facing function at this current time and would as a substitute have them work at their two warehouses in Harmony and Fairfield.
“There is so much chaos and confusion going on for low-income individuals and people experiencing hunger, especially among our immigrant populations,” Sly mentioned. Their purchasers additionally might confuse Nationwide Guard members with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, she mentioned. “We wouldn’t want to unnecessarily scare or deter people from feeling safe to come get food from us.”
So far, each the San Francisco-Marin Meals Financial institution and the Alameda County Meals Financial institution have declined presents of California Nationwide Guard assist, based on NBC BayArea. It’s not not clear if these meals banks have sufficient employees and volunteers to distribute meals, or if they’d issues concerning the presence of uniformed troops at their work websites. Executives at these meals banks weren’t accessible to remark over the weekend.
“Today, the California Military Department is on the ground supporting food bank operations in Los Angeles,” Main Common Matthew P. Beevers, the division’s Adjutant Common mentioned in an announcement. “We are grateful to play a crucial role in this effort and honored to serve our communities once again.”
Even with the troops having orders to not conduct enforcement operations, Bacho expects that a few of their purchasers will nonetheless wish to keep away from going wherever close to them. And as Second Harvest stays open to welcoming Nationwide Guard assist sooner or later, “we want to reassure folks that we won’t have a National Guard presence at our distribution sites because we don’t want people to be afraid to reach out for help.”
Initially Revealed: October 26, 2025 at 6:00 AM PDT
