Food bank receives $10K donation
The Yuma Community Food Bank recently received a $10,000 donation that comes at a crucial time of need for the organization.
The funds were raised for YCFB at the second annual City of Yuma Wine Event, which was hosted by local financial planning company Yuma Investment Group Wealth Management.
According to YCFB president and CEO Shara Merten, the funds will help the food bank during a trying time of the year.
“We are actually using that (money) to help supplement the food during the summer months because we don’t receive as many donations,” Merten said.
She explained that the decline in donations is due in part to the loss of contributions from winter visitors who leave during the summer.
“We have to rely pretty heavily on our partnerships with the local community as well as our corporate partnership to help to augment the food (donation) drop,” Merten said. “Sometimes we have to work with some of our partners to purchase food.”
Presently, the food bank can purchase about nine meals for every dollar though Feeding America and other hunger relief programs.
“The donation comes at a worthwhile time,” Merten said. “We are coming into summer, and it’s when we have a lot of decline in donations, and unfortunately people become more in need of what we provide in services.”
Merten attributes a high unemployment rate and the fact that children are now out of school for the summer as the reasons for the higher demand. Yuma’s food bank also serves as a summer feeding site for kids under the age of 18 to get free lunch each weekday, as many of them would during the school year.
In total, about 82 people attended the wine tasting event created to support the YCFB. Kayla Irr-Mendez, director of First Impressions with Yuma Investment Group Wealth Management, said the funds raised were accomplished though ticket sales, auction items and donations.
“YCFB strives to help our community and help provide families with a better future, the same ethic that Yuma Investment Group strives for,” Irr-Mendez said.