Take action against hunger with Second Harvest

If you’ve been looking for a good way to get involved in the community, learning about food insecurity in Orange County might be the perfect starting point.

Willing to pick food at a farm or process bulk items at a distribution center to help feed others? Perhaps you’d like to hold a virtual food drive.

How about joining special food bank activities to commemorate 9/11? Cheer on a fundraising competition to pull a tractor-trailer weighing about 70,000 pounds. Or don symbolic orange clothing.

All are activities Second Harvest Food Bank in Irvine is promoting in September for Hunger Action Month.

The national awareness campaign, launched in 2007, underscores the inability of many in the community to consistently access adequate food.

Second Harvest has participated in Hunger Action Month since its inception. Local activities ramped up during the pandemic.

Second Harvest CEO Claudia Bonilla Keller calls food insecurity “a problem that is not going away and is actually getting worse.”

Keller is particularly concerned about a finding in the “Map the Meal Gap” study released in July: 1 in 6 Orange County children are affected by food insecurity, a 27% increase over one year.

“It is important as kids are going back to school and we’re going into the holiday season to take time to very intentionally focus our community’s attention on what is a growing problem,” Keller says.

Hunger Action Month helps energize the volunteers and financial donations vital to the nonprofit.

Last fiscal year, Second Harvest’s 15 truck drivers delivered some 42.1 million pounds of food to pantries, houses of worship, school programs, colleges and universities, homeless shelters, senior centers and other sites.

This year, the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks will be marked by special volunteer shifts at the Marine Way distribution center and the 45-acre Harvest Solutions Farm near Portola Springs. All volunteers get a commemorative coin.

Irvine Spectrum Center and Irvine Auto Center will air Hunger Action Month public service announcements. Pretend City Children’s Museum and Wild Rivers are also holding events.

Second Harvest makes it easy to get involved, from virtual to live participation.

“If somebody maybe doesn’t want to volunteer, we say, well, come take a tour. You don’t have to do anything but listen and learn,” Keller says.