California National Guard Will Help Food Banks In The Coachella Valley
By Julia Paskin and Jessica P. Ogilvie
Published Mar 23, 2020 8:49 AM
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Members of the California National Guard will head to the Coachella Valley and surrounding areas Monday to help food banks who have lost volunteers due to state and local “stay at home” orders.
The guardsmen and guardswomen will work with FIND Food Bank, the regional food bank for the area, which has lost up to 70% of its volunteers.
“Lines are doubling,” said Debbie Espinosa, the president of FIND. “In Indio, it normally is about a 100-person site, and we had over 400 people arrive to receive food.”
Espinosa says there's plenty of food to go around, but there are not enough people to assemble and distribute it.
The state’s National Guard will send 25 men and women, who will put together bags of food and make deliveries to the area's distribution sites.
The FIND food bank typically feeds 90,000 people a month in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Officials there expect the need to be greater during the outbreak.
Fentanyl and other drugs fuel record deaths among people experiencing homelessness in L.A. County. From 2019 to 2021, deaths jumped 70% to more than 2,200 in a single year.
