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From Pantry to Food Bank: The First Forty Years

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Chapter One

It started with an idea. Why not feed the hungry people in our own neighborhood, city, and county? A few individuals joined together and began collecting bread, fruit, and vegetables from stores, farms and backyard gardens. The volunteers gave the food to mothers with hungry children and fathers unable to provide adequately for their families. That was in Davis in 1970. Now in 2009 that original idea not only lives on but is the driving force behind a successful business that provides food to hungry people all over Yolo County.

Where did the idea come from? The 1960s in the United States were tumultuous times. During John Kennedy's presidency there was a feeling of optimism that bright ideas and hard work could solve the problems of the world. Young people, including many from the Davis campus, flocked to join the Peace Corps to help those in need in Africa and South America. Others devoted themselves to environmental causes designed to save the planet. Then President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, and the assassinations of his brother Robert Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. soon followed. The grief and confusion caused by those murders and the unpopular war in Viet Nam generated widespread distrust of the U.S. government, and young people demonstrated violently on college campuses across the country. In response, campus leaders urged students to volunteer for worthwhile causes, and churches urged members to care for those in need in their community. In Washington, D.C. President Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty and in the years ahead, Congress initiated new programs to help the hungry: Food Stamps, School Breakfasts, the WIC program for pregnant and nursing mothers and their young children, and Meals on Wheels for the elderly.

In 1968 CBS showed a special report on "Hunger in America" that was widely watched and discussed. The film painted a devastating portrait of poverty in cities and rural areas. Public awareness of the poor in America grew, and on December 2, 1969, in response to political pressure from churches and 79 national organizations, President Richard Nixon convened a White House Conference on Hunger. Locally the Davis Community Church was actively promoting awareness of the hungry and homeless in Yolo County, and church members were attending meetings to talk about ways to help. On January 17, 1970, the Center for Community Development of the UC Davis Cooperative Extension sponsored a conference, "The Politics of Hunger." The purpose of the conference was to "bring together people from all over California to discuss issues and initiate a unified effort to end the problem of hunger in our state." Panels and speakers included UC Davis professors and students, California Senator George Moscone, National Council on Hunger and Malnutrition Director John Kramer, and representatives of the national media, farm workers, State Public Health, and California Rural Legal Assistance. More than 700 people from all over Yolo County, and beyond the County, attended the one-day conference. According to Dorothy Laben, one of the participants, "At the end of the day it was decided that each county would form a coalition against hunger, and the Yolo County Coalition Against Hunger was born."

FORMATION OF THE YOLO COUNTY COALITION AGAINST HUNGER

There was a follow-up meeting on the UC Davis campus the following week on January 24, 1970, attended by 35 Yolo County individuals interested in starting a coalition on hunger. They received legal advice from Kellis Parker, Director of the Martin Luther King Program at the UCD Law School, and practical advice from Eliner Martin of Bryte. Mrs. Martin, the mother of ten children, energetically promoted the idea that the real force behind any coalition is the idea of cooperation, and she immediately led efforts to set up a county committee. A little more than a week later, on Feb. 3, 1970, the first meeting of the Yolo County Coalition Against Hunger was held. True to Mrs. Martin's idea, representatives from a variety of local agencies attended, among them: Art Williams from the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO); Rick Gonzales from the Concilio; Karen Woodbury from the University Cooperative Extension; Judy Cromwell from the National Council on Hunger and Malnutrition; and Gilbert Matta from the Yolo County Welfare Department. Also attending were local interested citizens: Frances Rudert and Dorothy Laben, Davis; Muriel Brandt, El Macero; William F. Scott, Woodland; Eliner Martin, Bryte; and Debbie Dillon. (There may have been others, but formal minutes of the meeting are missing.) At that meeting Bill Scott and Debbie Dillon were elected temporary co-chairs of the coalition, and plans for a meeting in March were formulated. The coalition was up and running!

On March 16, 1970, the Coalition met together under the chairmanship of Eliner Martin. The group first heard a report by Nadine Noelting, a UCD student, on school lunch programs in Yolo County. They then agreed to begin work on drawing up non-profit corporation papers. Permanent officers of the Coalition would be elected at the next meeting, and Finance, Emergency Food and Publicity committees would be appointed.

Although a committee, headed by Kellis Parker of the UCD Law School, soon began preparing language for Articles of Incorporation, it appears that the Coalition was far more interested in feeding the poor and teaching people about good nutrition than in legal paperwork. For some reason, it took a year before the necessary documents were prepared. The Articles of Incorporation of the Yolo County Coalition Against Hunger were formally signed by Paul Gutierrez, Donald E. Mason, and Dorothy Lobb Laben on April 26, 1971, and filed with the California Secretary of State on June 1, 1971. According to the Articles of Incorporation, "The specific and primary purposes are to initiate, coordinate, sponsor, promote, and carry out plans, policies, and activities for the elimination of hunger and malnutrition, and to aid, assist and foster the planning, re-planning and improvement of living conditions in Yolo County, California, all for the purpose of combating hunger and malnutrition and securing adequate diets, community facilities, and other related facilities, services, and conditions, economic and otherwise, conducive to the progress and general welfare of the community." In practical terms this meant working with existing groups by exploring food sources, supplementing the supplies of existing groups, and promoting good nutrition by supplying information and using standards of good nutrition as guidelines for the purchase of food.

By June 1970 the Coalition was a going concern. Without formal bylaws, the group decided that membership in the Coalition would be open to all interested residents of Yolo County. A board of directors, half of whom were to be members of the community and half representatives of organizations, would be elected at a mass meeting of the membership. In June the first Board of Directors was elected: Chairman, Manuel Chavez; Co-Chairman, Bill Scott; Secretary, Frances Rudert; Assistant Secretary, Debbie Dillon; Treasurer, Don Mason. Five committees were set up: Nutrition Education, Emergency Food, Federal Food Programs, Research, and Publicity. In addition, Manuel Chavez was selected the Coalition's delegate to the Economic Opportunity Commission ("EOC"), a federal agency in charge of emergency food and medical service programs. From the beginning, the Coalition worked closely with EOC and the Yolo County Welfare Department which had begun distributing food stamps locally in May 1970. In August, the Yolo County Board of Supervisors approved appointing a Coalition member to the EOC Board of Directors.

All members of the Coalition were volunteers recruited from different communities and organizations in Yolo County. Some joined because they worked for agencies that dealt with the poor and hungry; others because of their religious faith. Inez DeFazio, a member of St. James Catholic Church in Davis, who had been taught at an early age to care for the poor and needy, was impressed with the goals of the Coalition. For many years she effectively applied her skills to collaborate on behalf of the hungry. Several were members of Davis Community Church ("DCC"), which actively supported efforts to help the poor. For a number of years the pastor Don Mason served as the Coalition's treasurer. DCC members Laben and Muriel Brandt quickly became leaders in the new organization. As head of the Emergency Food Committee Dorothy immediately began daily rounds to collect surplus food from bakeries and grocery stores, UCD and other sources. Muriel, a nutritionist, enthusiastically shared her expertise in the Coalition's efforts to provide nutrition education in the county. DCC had been providing storage space for food since 1970 and when the Coalition was founded, DCC allowed the organization to store food there and to make its official address the church office, 412 C Street, Davis.

THE COALITION WORKS WITH OTHERS

From the beginning the Coalition decided that it would be best to work with already existing county-wide groups that were trying to help in emergencies. One such group was Davis Community Church's Senior High Fellowship, advised by Pastor Don Mason. This group of students sponsored a Hunger Hike on May 7, 1970, to raise money "to combat hunger in this area." The hikers, most of them students, solicited pledges from sponsors for each mile of the hike from Davis Central Park to Nelson's Grove, north of Woodland. They raised $2,776.28 which they turned over to the Coalition to buy food for the seven emergency food closets that were already operating in Yolo County. Part of the money also went to buy food stamps and to disperse information about food stamps and emergency food sources.

There were a number of governmental agencies already trying to help the poor and the hungry in Yolo County, and the Coalition began working with them immediately. The federal Office of Economic Opportunity ("OEO") administered the application of federal funds for Johnson's War on Poverty through local Economic Opportunity Commission ("EOC") in each county. In the fall of 1970 the Emergency Food and Medical Service ("EFMS") was created by the OEO to seek out the hungry in the counties, provide them with a means to get food and educate them in nutrition. This involved providing emergency food, certification for food stamp eligibility, and meal and food vouchers for those in need. The Coalition voted to give $50 to EFMS to help people who could not afford to buy food stamps. They also produced "Yolo Wise Buys," a newsletter giving useful nutritional advice in English and Spanish, and distributed it along with food stamps. Inez DeFazio, a founding member of the Coalition, served as a part-time Community Aide for EOC for five years.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) established a Food and Nutrition Service in 1969, and the Coalition began an on-going relationship with the USDA early in 1970. The USDA distributed surplus agricultural products (commodities) nationally to local neighborhoods through a network of state and county offices. They also offered nutrition education with the goal of helping people to eat more healthful foods. Of particular interest to the Coalition were the school lunch and WIC programs which they helped by distributing food to schools and food closets participating in the programs. In May 1970 Yolo County set up a program to implement the new Food Stamp program which was administered nationally by the USDA and locally by the counties. Yolo County Welfare Department was assigned to handle the program. As with any new program, there were many problems to be dealt with, and on June 1 the Board of Supervisors voted not to burden the Welfare Department with the distribution of USDA commodities also. They did continue the nutrition education program, however, and by fall they resumed distribution of the commodities. During the summer the Coalition cooperated with the Welfare Department to help people learn about nutritious eating and the procedures involved in buying food stamps.

The Coalition, with its limited volunteer and financial resources, recognized that it must cooperate with and coordinate the activities of existing non-profit groups with similar goals instead of competing with them. There were seven food closets operating in Yolo County in 1970 - in Clarksburg, Davis, Esparto, Knights Landing, West Sacramento, Winters and Woodland. Accordingly, the Coalition distributed donated, and purchased food, to restock the shelves of those food closets. Since many of the volunteers lived in Davis and Woodland, they developed a particularly close working relationship with STEAC (Social and Temporary Emergency Alleviation Committee, a non-profit corporation operating in Davis) and the Volunteer Bureau in Woodland. They also worked closely with churches in the county, particularly Catholic, Presbyterian and Baptist churches. Many of these churches had been actively helping poor people in their congregations and communities for years.

FUND-RAISING

In the summer of 1970, the Coalition was given its first grant. The Eldridge Foundation, based in San Francisco, provided small grants for projects oriented toward positive and substantive social change. After convincing the Foundation of the Coalition's purposes and involvement in the community, it received $1,840 to pay for a community aide to inform people in low-income areas about the Coalition and the food stamp program. The Coalition decided to concentrate the aide's activities in one small community. They chose Knights Landing and hired Mrs. Esther Urias, a Knights Landing native who was bilingual in English and Spanish. She worked until December 1970, and her contract was not renewed when funds were no longer available. (The Eldridge Foundation gave one more grant of $1,800 to the Coalition in 1973.)

In the summer of 1970, Karen Woodbury and Eliner Martin, two of the Coalition's founders who had pushed hard for a program of nutrition education, both left the area. Karen returned to Africa with the Peace Corps, continuing efforts at community organization she had begun a year before. Eliner went to work full-time in Sacramento. Dorothy Laben, who was a nutritionist and firmly believed in nutrition education, nevertheless reminded the Coalition that their primary mission was to "feed the hungry," and urged members to concentrate on acquiring and distributing food. They received donations of rice from the Rice Growers Association, beans from Oakland Bean Company in Knights Landing, canned food from bins around town, bread from bakeries, and surplus food from grocery stores. They also purchased food to supplement the donated food. Food was distributed to food closets and organizations on a regular basis. Often Dorothy delivered the food in her pickup truck on her way to community meetings. Their efforts bore fruit: according to a report dated December 6, 1970, in the previous months the Coalition assisted 200 families, representing 700 men, women and children in the county.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from From Pantry to Food Bank: The First Forty Years by Shipley Walters Copyright © 2010 by Shipley Walters. Excerpted by permission.
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