The line outside of West Valley Community Services in Cupertino stretched down the block. Longtime volunteers and staff had never seen such a massive need for the nonprofit’s services.
“This is really unprecedented,” executive director Josh Selo said during a virtual town hall meeting on April 29.
The Cupertino-based organization serves all seven ZIP codes in the West Valley, providing food and emergency rental assistance to low-income families in Cupertino, Saratoga, West San Jose, Los Gatos and Monte Sereno, as well as to students at West Valley and De Anza colleges. The nonprofit is looking for ways to meet the unprecedented need caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the waves of job loss affecting thousands of South Bay residents.
Compared to this time last year, WVCS has 302 percent more new clients and 220 percent more requests for rental assistance. At the time of the video call, staff and volunteers had distributed 627 boxes of food to West Valley College and signed up nearly 40 seniors for the new doorstep drop-off grocery program.
At the same time, WVCS is seeing a more volatile food supply. To stock its food pantries, the nonprofit works with Grocery Rescue and Second Harvest of Silicon Valley. Grocery Rescue collects surplus stock from markets around the South Bay, but with an uptick in bulk buying during the pandemic, stores have less to give. Second Harvest’s own food banks have seen increased demand as well, so they’ve been unable to provide as much as usual.
To account for the uneven food supply, WVCS has partnered with local chambers of commerce to find restaurants that can supply hot meals. Volunteers are also accepting donations of groceries and fruit from people’s trees.
“We’ve had to build the plane while we’re flying it,” Selo said on the call.
Staff at the nonprofit are considered essential employees, so they’re permitted to continue working during the statewide mandatory “shelter in place” order. Staff and volunteers are following social distancing protocols, a tough ask in the center’s small footprint. Rather than being allowed to come into the building to shop for groceries, clients wait outside for a volunteer to hand them two bags of food—one with dry goods, including bread, and one with meat and dairy. Clients and volunteers are separated by a plexiglass screen, and a camera scans IDs. Those who can are working from home, including case managers, who are meeting with clients via Zoom video conferencing.
As of the virtual town hall, no clients, volunteers or staff with WVCS had tested positive for COVID-19.
While the food supply has been unstable, there has been an influx of volunteer inquiries. Staff initially worried about having enough volunteers, as they had to ask many of their regular volunteers—most of whom are over 60 years old—not to come in. But Selo said they now have a waitlist of people who have expressed interest.
While the physical center can only hold so many volunteers while still complying with social distancing protocols, the nonprofit has dispatched many volunteers via its new food delivery system, which launched in April. Volunteers drive groceries to the houses of elderly or immunocompromised residents who can’t make it to the food distribution sites. Selo speculated that many volunteers would be unable to continue after furloughed workers and those working from home return to their offices, so he’s maintaining a list of people who reach out to fill that eventual need.
Selo emphasized the need for non-food donations, including masks to distribute to clients and volunteers, cleaning supplies and paper bags, which he said have been even harder to come by as local stores ban the use of personal reusable bags to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
The nonprofit launched a capital campaign late last year to expand the size of the food pantry, which Selo said is even more critical in light of COVID-19. The campaign has reached approximately 75 percent of its goal, but its public launch has been postponed. In March, WVCS also launched an emergency COVID-19 fundraising campaign, which is still accepting donations. WVCS had to postpone its annual fundraising event, Chefs of Compassion, which was scheduled for September.
“Where do we go from here? What happens next? For now, it’s business as it’s become usual here,” Selo said during the meeting.
To donate, visit https://www.wvcommunityservices.org/donate-now-covid19.
