Community briefs
Drive-thru holiday center
Sunnyvale Community Services is hosting a COVID-inspired drive-thru holiday center to distribute food and gift cards to 2,500 local families in need.
SCS staff and volunteers were set to hand out Target gift cards and monthly food distributions plus added food for holidays to 4,500 clients on Dec. 2, 14 and 16, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. each day. A drive-thru area will be set up in the Sunnyvale Community Services parking lot at 725 Kifer Road; all items will be placed in car trunks for minimal contact and maximum safety.
The event is intended to enable clients, who normally would “shop” for gifts at the SCS Holiday Center, to purchase gifts for their families in time for the holidays. Gift cards are valued at $50$200, depending on family size.
Second Harvest fundraiser
Second Harvest of Silicon Valley has launched its largest holiday fundraising campaign ever with the goal of raising $30 million by January. The fundraiser is intended to help cover increased expenses and to sustain emergency response efforts related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Second Harvest is now providing food assistance to an average of 500,000 people every month— twice as many as it served pre-pandemic. Second Harvest was receiving 11,000-38,000 boxes of pre-boxed food a week through the USDA’s Coronavirus Food Assistance Program, which is due to sunset in December.
Donate to the fundraising campaign at shfb.org or call 866-234-3663.
The pandemic has also forced Second Harvest to change the way it accepts food donations during the holiday season. This year the food bank is not accepting community food donations or distributing food collection barrels into the community. Instead, the public is encouraged to make a financial donation; individuals and groups can host a host a virtual food drive. For more information, visit shfb.org/ffd.
Anyone who needs food should call Second Harvest’s multilingual Food Connection hotline at 800-984-3663, Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-5 p.m. or visit shfb.org. Staff members speak English, Spanish, Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin and Tagalog.