A catastrophic hunger crisis? California food banks are being flooded by families seeking help

Every two weeks, cars line up at The Hill Church in Vallejo for a drive-thru food distribution. While Whitney Houston songs play over a speaker, volunteers load 39 pounds of food into each trunk — canned tuna, eggs, potatoes and other staples. 

Elvira Santiago, a retired medical assistant living in senior housing, is particularly excited about the bag of apples. 

“We eat them every afternoon. And I’ll cook chicken adobo with the chicken and vegetables,” said Santiago, who visited the distribution Wednesday for the first time this month and expects to return again. “When you go to Savers or the Filipino grocery, $50 is hardly enough.”

Santiago is one of the thousands of Californians visiting food banks this year, some for the very first time. The Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano, which organizes the Vallejo distribution, is serving 350,000 people every month across the two counties — double the 175,000 people it served per month before the pandemic.