{"id":32112,"date":"2022-06-03T01:43:00","date_gmt":"2022-06-03T08:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/?p=32112"},"modified":"2022-06-03T07:36:20","modified_gmt":"2022-06-03T14:36:20","slug":"food-share-ventura-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yardi.com\/blog\/food-share-ventura-county\/","title":{"rendered":"Food Share Ventura County"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Yardi is committed to supporting the community in every city where our offices are housed. Each year, the company distributes philanthropic aid<\/a> to organizations selected by its employees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2021, Yardi offices supported more than 350 nonprofits worldwide. For the remainder of the year, we will be bringing you the stories of those organizations and insight into how they aid their communities.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Today, we introduce you to Food Share<\/a>, the largest hunger-relief organization in Ventura County, serving approximately 190,000 food-insecure people each year. In 2021, Food Share distributed nearly 19 million pounds of food, the equivalent of just under 16 million meals.               <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA county-wide network of 190 pantry partners collects nutritious fresh and shelf-stable food items, at no charge, from Food Share\u2019s warehouse to distribute to their local communities. Food Share also supplies multiple weekly drive-thru emergency food box distributions and runs several programs serving vulnerable communities including farmworkers, low-income seniors, and the unhoused,\u201d said Monica White, president and CEO of Food Share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are immensely grateful for Yardi\u2019s generosity and commitment to ensuring that no one in our community goes hungry. Corporate donations on the scale of Yardi\u2019s are one of the main reasons we have been able to meet the dramatically increased need for food that we\u2019ve seen in the past couple of years,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A lost job leaves a family in need<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food Share contributed the story of client Hakim and her family, who worked at a senior center preparing and serving meals but lost her job when the center closed and switched to delivery-only.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For an already low-income family, the lost paycheck made putting enough nutritious food on the table even more of a struggle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt gets really hard to feed everybody,\u201d says Hakim, a mother of five with three children still living at home. Hakim was relieved when a friend told her about a weekly drive-thru food distribution in Moorpark where she could pick up a free box of shelf-stable pantry items and fresh produce. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI love to cook, and I don\u2019t want to waste any food. I enjoy cooking spaghetti, and sometimes we\u2019ve been getting bread, and things like potatoes, celery, cabbage, and zucchini and I\u2019ve been using that to make soup,\u201d explains Hakim. She also remembers to pick up an additional box for a friend in need who doesn\u2019t drive. \u201cI hope it continues. It has been very good to have the extra food. Thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Continuing the fight against hunger<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, Food Share will continue to lead the fight against hunger in Ventura County. \u201cWith inflation biting hard, we are seeing a new surge in people attending our drive-thru distributions and visiting our pantry partners. Hunger is an ever-present reality for too many,\u201d White said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current priorities for Food Share are:<\/p>\n\n\n\n