And various communities, including Alameda County, san ramon, and Silicon Valley, talking to those trying to do something about hunger. And when we examine the situation in Alameda County, we find that one in five residents experience or are at risk of hunger. In fact, about 119,000 are considered food insecure, and an addition 130,000 are marginally food secure. Addressing the need is a daunting task, and that is taken on by the Alameda CountyCommunity Food bank. Joining us to talk about whats being done and what needs to be done are director Michael Altfest and outreach associate roy chim. Welcome to the show. Michael altfest thank you for having us. Robert you know, you hear that kind of term, food insecure, and things like that. Give us an idea in terms of what that means. Michael its quite simple. So, when were talking about somebody thats food insecure, theyre literally answering questions like, i do not have enough food to feed my children today. So, these are people who are struggling to put a healthy meal on the table. Robert and that is scary when you think about it. I mean, you know, people kind of hear about food drives and things like that, but at the base of it is a very scary situation for people. Michael right, imagine coming home after a hard day of work or coming home from school, opening up the cabinet, and not seeing food, or not seeing healthy food in there. That is a huge problem here. And you know, as were talking about today, its not just people who are food insecure. Theres hundreds of thousands of people who actually qualify as food insecure, but you start to look deeper and there are people who are, especially because of the cost of living in the bay area, theres a lot of anxiety. Or you know, maybe theyre, you know, having to cut back a little bit at the end of the month. And were not just out there trying to help people who are already struggling, but make sure people who are, you know, kinda struggling dont slip any further into food insecurity. Robert thats right, people are making sacrifices to make ends meet, and sometimes that doesnt show up as the same as people who are in dire situations, yet its all kind of a struggle for everybody. One of the things too that we talked about before is that maybe culturally sometimes people dont come forward. When we talk about language barriers, when we talk about maybe just cultural reluctance to ask for help, i know the Community Food bank does a good job of outreach. How difficult is that for you and how widespread is that outreach . Roy chim yeah, i think most importantly for the calfresh outreach is, like, the people who has language barrier, they dont get, like, fully understanding about Calfresh Program, so they may still have very, like, outdated information. So, they thinkthey dont think they are qualified, so we are just, like, go out to the community, especially the chinatown area to promote, like, the program and get them the most updated information. Robert what is it that makes them reluctant . You know, when you have that kind of need, you would almost think that that wouldnt be something that theyd be resistant to . What is it that theyre whats their reluctance stem from . Roy i think mostly its just the fear, just the fear itself. Because some of the chinatown, like, residents, they may be immigrant family or they may be, like, kinda older, like senior, and then they kinda, like, just worry about what will happen with the policy change. So, overall i think just, like, the information is not very updated so they kind of worry about it. Robert yeah, and the multilingual thing is a big part of it, huh . Roy yeah, thats true. Robert in terms of trying to how many people youre trying to reach in the communities and everything, what is the outreach now for Community Food bank . How many people do you serve and how hard is that demand to keep up with . Michael the demand, were thankfully, were keeping up with the demand. I think the issue is reaching people who maybe dont yet realize that they could use our help. So, our Research Shows theres about 330,000 people in Alameda County alone who can use our assistance. And what the challenge is a lot of people dont basically anybody who relies on a food bank or needs Food Assistance is not going to identify as food insecure. So, a lot of our work is making sure that we can get out into the community, make sure people understand that were here to help, that getting help is not anything to be ashamed about. Stigma is a very big part of this. So, at the end of the day, were just trying to make our community a better place. So you know, make sure adults can be productive in the workplace, make sure children can be successful in school, make sure seniors can live independent, vibrant lives. So, its a lot of work, but with the community support, we are able to do this. Robert real quick here, is the kind of food that they can get from this program, in terms of for these immigrant families and everything, appropriate . Do they like it . Roy yeah, for the Calfresh Program, they can choose stuff thats, like, more fit for their diets. So, they can purchase food just like everyone else, like more, like, healthy stuff. Robert very good. Okay, roy, thank you for being here, and youll stay with us for this segment, okay, and well talk a little bit more about it. The nbc bay area and telemundo 48s feed the need food drive kicks off, again, saturday november 23 and goes through december 25 at Safeway Stores throughout the bay area. For more details, go to nbcbayarea. Com. And stay with us as we continue talking about the Alameda CountyCommunity Food bank and a partnering program to help with hunger long term. You heard about it a little bit right now, calfresh. Stay with us. Doesnt mean you got to spend a lot because dennys brought back the super slam™. With eggs, hash browns, bacon, sausage and pancakes. All for just 6. 99. The 6. 99 super slam™ is back see you at dennys robert and we are back to talk more about the Alameda CountyCommunity Food bank and a crucial nutrition assistance program, calfresh. Michael altfest is still with us, and we are joined now by darice ingram, the Program Coordinator for calfresh at csu east bay. Thank you for being here. What is the partnership here in terms of what you do and then what they do . Michael yeah, so our food bank, we partner with a number of different types of organizations. So, traditionally people know about food banks partnering with food pantries or soup kitchens. Whats surprising, i think, to a lot of people is that over the last couple years, our partnerships with universities particularly have become some of the fastestgrowing partnerships that we have. So, we work with universities through calfresh outreach to supply their food pantries and a number of other sorts of ways that we work with universities. Robert it goes without saying that the partnerships are what make it work, right . Michael exactly, yeah. Robert darice, when we talk about that, then were really talking about is students for the most part, right . Darice ingram yes, yes. Robert what is the situation . Well, first of all, give people sort of an overview. We touched a little bit about calfresh, but as i was saying to you a little earlier, people kinda think they know more about the program than they do. Give us a quick overview of calfresh. Darice so, calfresh is a Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that helps students, we particularly work with students, who meet certain income requirements or work requirements to get Food Assistance. So, we call calfresh, just like youd apply for Financial Aid, apply for food aid, and helps you sort of meet those needs, those food needs that you may have. A lot of people think that just because a student lives on campus that they dont have a food need, and what we found, even with our meal plans which are pretty enriching, that students still will have a food need at the end of the semester. And so, theyre running out of food or theyre running out of meal swipes, so calfresh helps to provide supplemental nutrition and food for students who may run out of food while theyre at college. Robert right, michael was mentioning too that its a growing demand kind of thing. How is it set up then at schools then . How do students get the help and how do they actually seek it out . Darice so for us, we do a lot of different promotional programs working with the food bank. We have a Promotion Program called free with ebt, so we try to make having an ebt card kind of cool and see what other benefits that you can have. So, we do a lot of tabling, a lot of outreach. We meet people in housing and we have students come and meet us. We also have a food bank on campus that students can come in and get free nutritional programs, and then were working on getting ebt acceptance actually on campus as well so students can actually use their food aid card on campus to buy meals. Robert and you mentioned that youre making it cool, but i dont think students themselves, they dont have as much reluctance, do they . I mean, theyre always looking for ways to, you know, make their budget stretch, right . Darice they are looking for ways to make their budget stretch, but sometimes students are confused about what calfresh is. So, just getting the information out and helping students understand that, hey, this is a program that can help you with your food need. Or theyre misinformed because they think its going to impact their Financial Aid or that theyre gonna have to pay it back. Robert is it pretty uniform from school to school or do schools basically have their own kind of setup. Darice different schools have different setups. The Calfresh Program is a federal program that works with california state, so the baselines and the guidelines are the same, but how different schools set it up is really different. We try to make it, like i said, really fun. We have calfresh parties, so we invite students out to learn about different Nutrition Education and then apply for calfresh. We work with our orientation teams and a lot of our Outreach Teams to really make it work and help fit it into a students schedule. Robert its been a little while, but i think most successful student parties, they had food there. Darice yes, ha ha ha. Robert when you talk about the demand growing and everything like that, do students present a challenge in terms of keeping up with that demand . Michael well, theres a lot of turnover with students. So, i wouldnt say its necessarily a challenge, but this is kind of indicative, i would say, that University Calfresh outreach has actually become our number one calfresh outreach clinic in the entire county. So whereas we used to work with, and we still do work with maybe low Income Health clinics or other more traditional outlets, its been interesting to see over the last couple years that these universities have become our highest demand places of need. Robert yeah. How do you see calfresh maybe expanding . Does it need to expand . Do you see a need for some sort of evolution . Darice absolutely. So, just really working with students and helping both our federal government, and our state government, and our Community Know that there is a need on campus. So, i think thats the expansion, a lot of peertopeer work. And then students are really into policy and advocacy, so theyre taking up that notion to help really understand and help change some of the requirements for calfresh that helps allow more students to qualify. So, really getting the word out that students do have a food need, and then what some of those requirements are. So, theyve been doing a lot of work in working with the food bank to help change some of the policy around Nutrition Education. Robert and youre not keeping it a secret on campus, so if people look around, theyre gonna find you. Darice theyre gonna find us. Robert all right, thank you both for being here. Keep up the good work. Really appreciate it. Okay, well next we take a look at volunteering through the efforts by the san ramon kiwanis and key club. Thats coming up next. And even solve hunger problems in the community. A vital part is volunteerism. Joining me now is doug gin, the key Club Administrator of the San Ramon Valley kiwanis club. And also with us are too student volunteers. We have tony hong, a student with the Piedmont Hills High School key club, and kaylee wong with santa teresa High School Key club. Welcome to the show. Doug gin thank you. Robert give us an idea here in terms of the volunteers, you know what i mean . I mean, they do a lot of good, but how much does it also help the students themselves that are doing it . Doug it helps tremendously. It brings an aspect to the students of where they can construct their time, their volunteer time, helping the communities. And as a kiwanis organization, one of the best things weve ever done was create the Key Club Organization at the high school level. Through the vehicle of community service, it allows them to develop their own leadership skills, public speaking skills, time management, things that they dont learn at a classroom setting that they get through this experience. And you can see these two wonderful student leaders here, they can share their story too. Robert yeah, we talked about having been in key club ourselves in high school and its almost the introduction to thinking of society and social things that way. Yeah, tony, give me an idea of what made you decide to kind of be a part of this . Tony hong so, what made me decide to be part of key club was basically attending a few Service Events at first. And what this made me realize was that i even if something i do is really small, its still an impact, and i realized that maybe in the future, if i keep volunteering and doinghelping things out, like, within the community, i can really make a really big impact when i grow older. And i think this is what really motivated me because i had always wanted to make an impact on the community and i realized that doing service one at a time, it can really help me accomplish that goal. Robert and its interesting cause you get some direction that way, huh . Tony yeah. Robert as opposed to just wanting to do it, it gives you a way to kind of focus your energies, huh . Yeah, kaylee, how bout you . What made you decide to kinda get involved like this . Kaylee wong very similar. I started just from realizing it was a service club so i joined it, and a few volunteer Service Events in, i met a lot of people that, like, i became really Close Friends with. And through that, we together volunteered and helped out our community. Robert when you look around, is this also awe were talking about College Students and what they have to deal with, and of course its a different circumstance. Do you see, you know, other student level families dealing with hunger . Kaylee yeah, actually a lot of times i do, and sometimes they dont like to talk about it cause they might be, like, embarrassed or Something Like that, but i think its good that we now emphasize the fact that its not something to be embarrassed about and that you can get the help that you need. Robert yeah, tony, did you also have that kind of perspective at all . Tony yeah, i think definitely key club does help with hunger in some aspects, because as volunteers we do help with the food bank and some Service Projects that we do, we can set up, like, food for the homeless. And i think it is, like, really beneficial and it is something that makes key club really robert pretty rewarding, too, for you . How bout you, kaylee . It is also very rewarding to do it . Kaylee yeah, it is. Robert doug, is it difficult to kinda set up these programs . Is it difficult to coordinate these . And do you have a lot of students doing it or would you like to see more . Doug theres a lot. Certainly within the bay area, theres over 4,000 High School Students that are a part of the Key Club Program. Myself as an administrator that oversees our Key Club Program across california, nevada, hawaii, we have about 40,000 students involved. A lot of the demographics are asian students, asianamerican students. But in terms of difficulty, its part of the program where were educating and mentoring these students, you know, again, to plan these projects. And all too often, ive seen where the group of students is saying, we wanna do something, and it can be as simple as, lets get together in an environment and make Peanut Butter sandwiches, and well bring that to a food bank or somewhere so it can be distributed, but it teaches them how to plan these events and the logistics around it. Robert lets go to the students here. What was something that, as opposed to just volunteering your time and doing whatever it is that somebody asks, did you kind of develop something that you kind of thought of as your own kind of project . Tony yeah, so basically this isnt really related to service in a way, but i did realize through key club that i can inspire other people to grow their own passion for service. And i realized as a leader going through key club, i knew that every small thing i do, it does make an impact on the community, but as well as the peo