Serving its community since 1983 with its earliest beginnings at the Edgemoor Barn, The Santee Food Bank is moving forward with grand plans for the future. Currently located at 10925 Hartley Road, Suite J in Santee, it provides food to people in the community every Wednesday and Friday and the first and third Saturday of each month from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Marty Smothermon, Santee Food Bank onsite coordinator and director said it serves approximately 500 families a month with a two-day emergency supply of food.
Serving its community since 1983 with its earliest beginnings at the Edgemoor Barn, The Santee Food Bank is moving forward with grand plans for the future. Currently located at 10925 Hartley Road, Suite J in Santee, it provides food to people in the community every Wednesday and Friday and the first and third Saturday of each month from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Marty Smothermon, Santee Food Bank onsite coordinator and director said it serves approximately 500 families a month with a two-day emergency supply of food.
“What we give the clients depends on the donations that come through the door,” she said. ”If we have an abundance of food, they might get five days. We get food from many businesses in Santee, Vons, Albertsons, Costco, Food for Less, Target, various churches in the community.”
Smothermon said Carlton Hills Evangelical Lutheran Church offered the Food Bank a portion of its property to relocate buildings and set up operations on behalf of the Food Bank. It is negotiating with the Ramona School District to acquire three portable classrooms that will be retrofitted and relocated to the new site. It is the Food Bank’s responsibility to bring utilities from the street to the site.
“We will need water, sewer and electrical services and right now our best estimate at this time to accomplish this is it will take approximately $75,000,” she said. “I am very hopeful and optimistic for a couple of reasons,” she said. “Number one, Sprouts in Santee did a recent program of Grab and Give. Bags of food were filled with a sales receipt attached that shoppers grabbed, paid for and donated to the food bank. Shoppers received a 10 percent discount when purchasing the donation and in the end we received more than 1,100 bags of food from the Santee community through this. That is more than $11,000 work of food that came through the door through the generosity of our community.”
Smothermon is hopeful that it will make the goal, and perhaps exceed it because it is non-profit, and relies on donations to keep it going. And it will always have overhead expenses.
“And when we move, we will be responsible for all of our property and equipment. So we always need a reserve,” she said.
Sherrie Peregud, Santee Girl Scout Troop 6048 leader and her daughter Twila came in with two bags of peanut butter.
“Our Girl Scout troop is working on their Bronze Award. I put out to them, ‘What do you want to do to make a difference in the community?’ It was unanimous that they all wanted to help the Food Bank,” said Sherrie Peregud. “So they collect peanut butter. Because it is an expensive item we didn’t expect it from all the families so they did recycling, asked our families to donate, and asked our sister troops to join in and we have collected quite a bit of peanut butter.”
Donations can be made through the website, www.santeefoodbank.org that connected to its PayPal account or donations can be mailed to P.O. Box 712054, Santee, CA 92072. The Food Bank is currently ending its lease, and will go to month to month after April 1.
