Community Action Napa Valley’s Napa Food Bank is looking for another location that can handle long lines of vehicles belonging to people in economic distress.
Since the start of the pandemic, the food bank has been grappling with a rapidly expanding clientele base, program coordinator Taima Broadhead explained to the Register in June. Over the course of a few weeks, the Napa pantry had gone from serving an average of 50 families a week to more than 300, she said.
Assisted by members of the National Guard, the Napa operation pivoted to a drive-through model. The Yajome Street location wasn’t large enough for the expanded clientele to go ‘shopping’ inside the food bank while maintaining social distancing.
Through the spring and summer, guardsmen would direct drivers to line up in the parking lot of New Tech High School, across the street from the pantry, and exit through the old Sunsweet complex parking lot onto Jackson Street.
In September, the food bank received notice the complex’s parking lot would be closed for construction, which forced staff to relocate the food bank’s distribution to New Tech’s parking lot.
With Napa’s schools now resuming in-person instruction for portions of four days each week, the schedule for continued use of New Tech’s parking lot was no longer sustainable, according to Shirley King, food bank director.
CANV Food Bank will now operate at New Tech from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. and from 12:30 p.m.to 3:30 p.m. on Wednesdays, and from 12:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Thursdays when students aren’t in classes, according to King.
The new schedule represents a decline in the number of days the food bank is able to serve patrons, but expansion of Wednesday’s hours will allow it to maintain the number of operating hours, King said.
The food bank is examining its options for moving to a “safe, effective location,” King said. It will retain the lease of its Yajome Street building, she said.
“The biggest issue is that there are too many vehicles — we can’t queue everyone up in the school parking lot and use it as a distribution zone” amid regular school traffic,” King said.
CANV is working closely with the city of Napa on its options. For now, “we have not suspended any programming, though. We are still serving,” King said.
Need had begun to stabilize and even decline through the late summer months, King said, but then the wildfires struck, and demand went up again. The organization’s pantries in Calistoga, Pope Valley and Angwin have seen similar upticks, King said.
“Those are heavily fire-impacted places,” she added. “And we suspect that with the harvest being called off in some places, (this will continue) in the next few months.”