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Josie Swan
FSN 315
Corinne Kohlen
2 June 2015
Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the problems of hunger and food insecurity at large. It also
explores what the food bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo County is doing to tackle this
problem. The Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo has outlined the following goals
to approach this issue: All San Luis Obispo county residents should have access to
nutritious food, to improve nutrition of residents who experience food insecurity, to
create a sustainable food system for all the residents in the county, to collaborate to target
the root causes of hunger, and to have a strong hunger free community plan. This paper
will discuss the details of each of these goals as well as my volunteer work with some of
them. It will also discuss what I learned in the process as well as some suggestions for the
program I encountered while I was there.
INTRODUCTION
Over 17.5 million people in the United States (14.3%) self-identified as foodinsecure in 2013. Many organizations across the United States, including the San Luis
Obispo, Food Bank Coalition are aiming to reduce this number (Coleman-Jensen,
Greogory, and Singh).
HOW DOES THE FOOD BANK COALITION OF SLO HELP?
The San Luis Obispo food bank coalition is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization that
is part of Feeding Americathe largest non-governmental domestic hunger relief
program in the nation (About Us). In 2015 alone, 6 million pounds of food will be
delivered all around San Luis Obispo County. 3 million of this will be fresh fruits and
vegetables! This theoretically will meet the 25% increase in our county's need in the last
year (Our Impact). Their plan to target hunger and food insecurity is known as the
"Paradox of Plenty". The hope is to decrease the waste and increase the food availability
to people who self-identify as food insecure.
Populations that are considered especially vulnerable to food insecurity are the
following: underemployed, unemployed, impoverished families, senior citizens and the
working poor. These groups have food insecurity rates as high as 75% in San Luis
Obispo County alone. The Paradox of Plenty places exceptional focuses on vulnerable
populations (Cadigan and Diringer).
There are five specific categories outlined in the Paradox of Plenty, each with a
specific goal. Each goal then has three to five objectives, and each objective has
measurable strategies. The goals for the five categories are:
1) All San Luis Obispo county residents should have access to nutritious food.
2) Improve nutrition of residents who experience food insecurity.
3) Create a sustainable food system for all the residents in the county.
4) Collaborate to target the root causes of hunger.
5) Have a strong hunger free community plan.

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All San Luis Obispo county residents should have access to nutritious food.
There are several distribution sites throughout the county that run both biweekly
and monthly. There are traditional food distribution sites that are schedules for a specific
time and location to pick up distributions. This is the style of one of the sites I
volunteered at (with the expectation of being specified as a senior site).There many
other types of sites as well. The food bank coalition is running a free summer youth
lunch program to help make up for the school lunches that students have during the year.
There will be bag lunch drop offs five days per weeks at multiple locations throughout the
county. Anyone under the age of 18 is eligible for this program. There is also a farmers
market style distribution. This is set up both as a childrens site for after school
programs and as a senior site for seniors to have both access to healthy food and the
ability to socialize in the community. They also hold a distribution at their warehouse
called Friends of the Food Bank. This opens up many more options for food choices
because some distributions can be personalized depending on someones needs. The final
way that they help make sure everyone has access to adequate food in the county is their
Cal fresh outreach. The food Bank Coalition of SLO County organizes a full recruitment
at every distribution site in the county with brochures, eligibility information, and staff to
answer any questions one may have. Some future objectives include securing a plan for
surplus produce from more farmers in the area, and starting a program that would offer a
cash donation opportunity at the cash register of grocery stores.
Improve nutrition of residents who experience food insecurity.
The nutrition education program is a booth set up at each distribution site with
information, samples, and recipes. This is where many of my hours were spent
volunteering. The nutrition education program is great because often times people won't
know what to do with some of the veggies because they do not know how to cook them.
We give them some information about the benefits of the foods, as well as some recipes
that would be a great first-time try.
We also highlight one useful nutritional topic specifically per site (like whole
grains) and make the knowledge accessible and interesting as opposed to boring and
confusing.
We make samples of some healthy food available at the nutrition education booth.
These are samples of recipes that usually contain some of the distribution items or may
include something pertinent to the information tidbits shared that day. My favorite part
about this is that it gives people ideas of how to use things that they may have never seen
in their lives, while keeping them open-minded about it by creating a rendition of a more
well-known recipe. For example: we served a carrot-cookie with whole grain the day that
the distribution that contained carrots. The nutrition topic of the day was whole grains, so
there were a few examples of items made with whole grain as opposed to 100% whole
grain items.
Another day, there was kale in the distribution box and we made kale chips for the
recipe. Because this was a senior site we decided to make a recipe that is less bitter, as
opposed to using raw kale in a salad, for example. Hypogeusia was a strong analysis
factor in deciding this recipe. With the printed recipe was some information about the
importance of fruit and vegetable intake. This was the basis of some work I also did with
data entry/analysis.

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Outside of the nutrition education program, the distribution itself often promotes
really strong health. This is because it offers 50% fruits and vegetables. This helps
because it improves intake, but also because it makes the possibility of buying healthy a
reality. These distributions are each rationed at dollars per day. When the community
sees that way the food bank can pull together healthy food on such a low per-person
budget, they see that healthy eating is a reality for each and every person in the county.
Create a sustainable food system for all the residents in the county.
38,000 pounds of produce were gleaned by GleanSLO in 2011. This number has
increased to an expected total of 200,000 pounds in 2015 (Our Impact). The Central
Valley is an incredible resource. More than half the nations fruits, vegetables, and nuts
are grown in California (Hastings). The surplus produce on California farms is incredibly
accessible and the hope is to continue to establish relations with local farmers and
increase the gleaning. There is also hope in the future to establish incentive for the
farmers to participate in the program. Unfortunately I was unable to narrow the spectrum
of my service learning project enough with work in the gleaning program, but I plan to
help in the fall with harvest.
Collaborate to target the root causes of hunger.
It is important not to overlook that a large part of hunger is due to poverty. Stride
ran a community food security survey and of those surveyed, 83% reported food
insecurity. 60% of the people surveyed were at or below the federal poverty line (Lund
and Nazmi). In short, people are deciding between their next meal and transportation to
get their child to school, or paying their rent. Cal fresh is a great resource for this
problem. Though there may be more prevalent contributors to the root of hunger amongst
elderly, a fixed income isn't going to help provide any oft of nutritional intervention such
as diet liberalization. Cal fresh can allow residents, both young and old, to have a budget
solely for grocery shipping. This means the question of a dialysis treatment or the next
meal will not emerge.
The CalFresh enrollment in this county is incredibly low. The ratios of CalFresh
enrollment to Cal fresh eligibility were ranked in California. San Luis Obispo County
was rated 52nd out of 58 counties (Shimada, T). This means that only six counties have
lower percentage of their eligible residents enrolling for CalFresh than San Luis Obispo.
This is clear-cut evidence that the public stigma around accepting help in this county is
very strong. This is a hard problem to tackle, as there is no objective way to do so.
Have a strong hunger free community plan.
With the creation of a Food Policy Council in San Luis Obispo (SLO County Food
Systems Coalition), the Food Bank Coalition received a nation-wide grant--Hungry free
Communities Plan of 2011. With this they buy for the food boxes but they also do studies
to make sure they are placing resources where they are utilized best. Their mission is To
promote a sustainable food system that is equitable, profitable, resilient, and health
promoting in the county of San Luis Obispo". They also note that they are careful to
support but not duplicate the existing efforts to manage the SLO Food Systems Coalition.
(Cadigan and Diringer)

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WHAT I LEARNED
Most of the learning I did was observational learning. This is because the
demographic I was working with likes to remain anonymous and it is often hard to
established personal enough connections for an interview. With that said, I did meet on
person and his name is Sal. He is very healthy and participated in the fruit and vegetable
survey I was entering data for. I met him at the Baptist Church. His unending gratitude
was his most incredible and admirable quality. He, along with many of the seniors at the
food bank, didn't have many health complications. Most of the seniors take exceptional
care of themselves. Sal focuses on maximizing fruit, vegetables, and whole grains, while
minimizing saturated fat. He also takes a generic-brand multivitamin for people over the
age 65. He is 72 years old. I didnt notice any signs of sarcopenia. I noticed his teeth
looked very healthy so I asked him about the textures of foods that he eats. He doesnt
have a problem with any hard textures, but he really dislikes anything that is soggy. I
found this a bit comical because I cannot imagine what people try to feed him as a senior.
I noticed some sort of slight cognitive decline in his ability to hold a conversation
however this is the only place it was really apparent. Many of the things he was talking
about became anecdotes. I didnt mind, I appreciated the friendly company :)
Many of the seniors were similar to Salthey seemed very health oriented. This
is because they may not have the resources to buy the most expensive foods, but they see
that eating healthy is not unrealistic on a budget. Most of the seniors tend to eat very
well. They were very interested in the nutritional benefits of the food. I think that the fruit
and vegetable intake among the people that I met at the food bank truly makes a
difference. They expressed very strong interest in their health and I didnt see many
visual symptoms of health related disorder. I did meet a man with diabetes but he only
spoke Spanish so there was a language barrier. The one common thread I saw were signs
of dehydration. Although, I somewhat I expected to see this because I was in Paso Robles
and the weather is pretty warm consistently. In places like this it is very important to
drink enough water because even a Spring day can cause dehydration.
I also noticed a profound lack of signs of food insecurity. Almost everyone I ran
into appeared very well taken care of and happy. The few signs of problems I saw were
mostly physical. There were a few people that were missing teeth and a couple that had
some scratches that seemed slow healing. The missing teeth made sense to me because
people that have lower income may not have the ability to consistently visit a doctor or
dentist. I think the slow healing wounds could be a result of a zinc deficiency. This also
could be a result of inconsistent health care. In general, it is not difficult to maintain ones
health without a doctor when we are young. But as we grow old it becomes more and
more important to have regular checkups and it becomes a problem with things like
health insurance come up. As I mentioned before, most of the seniors seemed very
interested in maintaining health through diet and exercise, but many of the seniors didnt
have access to consistent health care.
Part of my observations regarding fruit and vegetable intake is based on a
longitudinal study over six weeks of fruit and vegetable intake. I did a lot of the data
entry and some data analysis from the before-and-after surveys. Though it was hard to get
two surveys from each participant, the overall averages of fruit and vegetable intake
increased incredibly after the importance of fruit and vegetable nutrition education
series.

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SUGGESTIONS
One thing that I would suggest to the food bank regarding their nutrition
education sites is to develop a more individualized nutrition education specific to seniors.
There is a very strongly developed program for the children and I believe doing so for the
seniors is just as important. The recipes for the heavily populated senior sites are
strategically planned with softer textures but the nutrition education is the same
information. I think that if they were educated on the senior-specific benefits of whole
grains and fiber as opposed to the general information about whole grains, the seniors
will feel that they have an individualized "education plan" and they may be more apt to
listen or ask questions.
Another way that the food bank can help developed relationships with the people
they are helping is to help remove the public stigma around the idea of accepting help. It
is a hand UP not a hand OUT and I think that this message needs to be spread to the
community more. I think that this would help many people feel more comfortable
accepting help, asking questions and accept additional information about resources.
Amongst the employees and volunteers at the food bank, there is unbelievable humility.
However, unfortunately this is not always the case amongst the community at large.
I think that there should be a specific component stressed regarding the public
about having the opportunity to help people. There should be the sense that we are just as
lucky to share the information and resources we have as anyone would be to receive
them. I think this would help establish the sense of community that is needed as a
foundation to be able to progress together.
There is also one suggestion I have for the associated CalFresh program. I've
noticed the interest peaks in the nutrition education where there are graphics, and concise
sets of useful information. Though there are many brochures for CalFresh, I think that if
some of the statistics and the eligibility requirements were communicated through
graphics, it would draw much more attention. This is because there would be virtually no
communication barrier perceived, whether its due to a foreign language, a
misperception, or even the desire for anonymity. This makes the set up very user friendly;
if they want to ask question they can but if they do not want to ask questions, they do not
need to.
Overall, the Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo I doing great at tackling
hunger in the county and I hope to continue to do what I can to help with the organization
in the future.
REFERENCES
(2014). About Us. Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo County.
<http://www.slofoodbank.org/about-us.php>
Cadigan, J., Diringer, J. (2012). Paradox of Plenty: A Community Roadmap for
Overcoming Hunger in San Luis Obispo County. SLO County Food Systems
Coalition. From:
<http://www.slofoodbank.org/uploads/Paradox%20of%20Plenty_Final%20Repor
t.pdf>
Coleman-Jensen, A., Gregory, C. Singh, A. (2014). Household Food Security in the
United States in 2013 Economic Research Report No. ERR-173, p 41.

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Hastings, D. (2014). Californias Central Valley: Producing Americas Fruits and
Vegetables Committee on Natural Resources. From:
<http://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2_5_14_ca_ri.pdf>
Lund, A., Nazmi, A. (2012) Hunger Free Communities Plan: Characterizing vulnerable
populatons in San Luis Obispo County. STRIDE. From
<http://digitalcommons.calpoly.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1073&context=fs
n_fac>
(2014). Our Impact. Food Bank Coalition of San Luis Obispo County. From:
<http://www.slofoodbank.org/our-impact.php>
Shimada, T. (2011). Program Acess Index 2011: Measuring County CalFresh
Utilization California Food Policy Advocates.From:
<http://cfpa.net/CalFresh/CFPAPublications/PAI-FullReport-2013.pdf>