Thumbnail photo: Marina MacNeil and Dominique Richcreek, staff members at Pacific Pantry, visited Smith River's Howonquet Hall in this 2024 file photo. | Jessica C. Andrews With CalFresh benefits fully restored for nearly 4,000 Del Norte families, a local emergency task force targeting food insecurity had officially demobilized as of Friday. But Julie Bjorkstrand said she and her team with Del Norte Unified School District Nutrition Services would be busy over the weekend assembling 600 food bags that will keep youngsters fed during the Thanksgiving break. Each bag will have five days of breakfast and five days of lunch and will be available for anyone who’s under 18. They will be distributed from 10 a.m.-noon at the Family Resource Center of the Redwoods, the Yurok Tribal Office in Klamath, the American Legion Hall in Gasquet and at Howonquet Hall and Smith River School. “My job obviously impacts people every day with food and lunch at school,” Bjorkstrand said. “To have crazy things happen and not be able to do anything about them is not my favorite place to be, so being able to get the grants and do food bags for kids on Monday is great.” Bjorkstrand received $12,000 from the Humboldt Area Foundation and $12,000 from the Del Norte Healthcare District. This was helpful, she said, because ordinarily she’s unable to operate the nutrition programs during school breaks that are less than 10 days not counting holidays or weekends. On Friday during an Emergency Food Task Force meeting, Bjorkstrand said the Humboldt Area Foundation granted DNUSD an additional $6,000 for backpack meals for homeless and foster students. “Saturday will be filled with assembling 600 bags, Monday we’ll have delivery drivers taking totes of food out to various locations for distribution,” Bjorkstrand said. “I’ll be able to breathe a little more except on Tuesday we’re pre-cooking all of the turkey for the Community Thanksgiving Dinner on Thursday.” Created in 2024 as part of a regional effort to improve people’s food access during a disaster, the Emergency Food Task Force activated for the first time on Oct. 29, about a month into the federal government shutdown. The goal was to help local food banks and other organizations brace for a surge in need. During Friday’s debriefing, task force partners compared the most recent crisis to a natural disaster such as the Smith River Complex wildfires in 2023. For Jennifer Ortman, program manager with Del Norte County’s Public Assistance/Employment & Training Branch, the SNAP Gap was unprecedented. “We’ve never not given out benefits except for this time,” she said. “A couple years ago, you could go to other places and some stores were still open.” According to Iya Mahan, food program director for the DNATL Community Food Council, a suspension in SNAP benefits wasn’t initially planned for when she spearheaded the creation of the Emergency Food Task Force. However, the task force’s activation is necessary if multiple people are facing food insecurity. Mahan also noted that multiple task force members were already activated to meet the need. “There’s very clear language in our disaster feeding plan that made it clear we could activate for this disruption,” she said. “Our chronic food security was actually being disrupted. The backbone of what we have to maintain food security was being taken away. It was a very different disruption.” Del Norte’s Emergency Food Task Force is part of the North Coast Emergency Food System Partnership. The partnership was created through a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Mahan said. The goal is to create an emergency feeding plan that includes local producers. During the recent SNAP disruption, the Emergency Task Force’s goal was to make sure all 30 of its partnering agencies and organizations were on the same page. It was also important to make sure no one was duplicating efforts. “Then we would have a countywide understanding of food resources,” Mahan said. “It really was this space that’s been created to activate in (emergencies) and be fluid.” The Emergency Food Task Force remained activated for 17 days, she said. During the first week of November, Pacific Pantry at the Family Resource Center of the Redwoods served more than 380 households, or about 1,050 individuals. Del Norte Mission Possible stepped up the distribution of their ready-to-eat food bags. The Yurok Tribe and Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation provided grocery gift cards for their tribal members who rely on SNAP and the Community Food Council began working with 30 Hmong families to create culturally-relevant food boxes. The Del Norte Office of Emergency Services created a food resources hotline. There were radio PSAs and spotlights as well as regular social media updates. In addition to donating $12,000 to Del Norte Unified School District, the Healthcare District contributed $20,000 to Pacific Pantry. Pacific Pantry’s ongoing fundraising campaign through A Mighty Cause also generated $12,000 in donations, according to Mahan. Marina MacNeil, the FRC’s food bank director, said she was aware of the SNAP delay the week of Oct. 20. She ordered extra food from the Redwood Empire Food Bank in Santa Rosa and began writing down a plan for how to deal with the extra need. On Friday, she said she thought the communication worked really well. During the first week of November, of the 380 households the pantry served, about 50 of those were new, MacNeil told Redwood Voice Community News. She said she expects the number of new households accessing the pantry to increase. On Thursday, she told her Emergency Food Task Force colleagues that 14 new families signed up for the program. Community volunteers stepped up as well. Pacific Pantry launched a community food drive, distributing blue barrels to various local businesses to accept canned or dry goods. Many business owners said they wanted to continue hosting a barrel though SNAP benefits have been restored. Members of the Community Emergency Response Team also stepped in to volunteer during food distribution times, and Crescent City’s public works crew helped unload one of the pantry’s food trucks, MacNeil said. “I think we did a better job getting information out about our hours,” she said. “We definitely want to let the community know we’re available any time they need us.” Pacific Pantry is a choice food bank housed in the Family Resource Center. Most of its fresh products are local, coming from Alexandre Family Farm, Woodhaven Farm, Rumiano Cheese, Ocean Air Farms, Sea Breeze Farms and Promiseland Farms. The pantry’s canned goods primarily come from Redwood Empire, MacNeil said. Despite the influx of new households, people were still able to choose the food that was right for them the first week of November, MacNeil said. But if SNAP had stayed paused beyond the first week, it may have had to pivot to pre-packaged bags, she said. Now with SNAP benefits restored, MacNeil said she expects to continue to see new families access the pantry. In addition to keeping its community food drive going, the FRC Food Bank is also still collecting the fixings for a festive meal during its holiday food drive, she said. Heading into the future, MacNeil said Friday partnering with other food organizations would allow resources to be distributed to those who need them faster. Mahan added that this could include working with local churches. At Del Norte County’s Office of Emergency Services, Emergency Services Coordinator Jessica Seaman said her department has deployed a survey to find out how big an impact the SNAP pause made on Del Norte households. “Were they able to find the sources they needed,” she said, giving examples of survey questions. “Were they already receiving CalFresh benefits and how many are in their household? What was the delay effect for your household and your ability to purchase food and during the delay, did you seek food assistance from other resources?” Mahan said it’s also important to capture the economic loss to the overall community. “In our food rescue meeting we had with Grocery Outlet, in the first week of November, they said they lost $30,000 because people with EBT weren’t able to shop,” she said. “We’re open to other ideas to measure the economic loss our community felt.” As for the Thanksgiving food bags DNUSD is distributing, Bjorkstrand they will consist primarily of grab and go school lunch fare. This includes bananas, carrots, apples, Uncrustables, string cheese and tuna. “I would definitely like to thank the Humboldt Area Foundation and the Del Norte Healthcare District for granting the funds to make this happen,” she said. “Without them, I wouldn’t be able to do this. I wouldn’t be able to provide this food over the break.”