The Yuma Community Food Bank faces challenges

For the past forty years, the Yuma Community Food Bank has focused on the need to feed children and families within Yuma County.

The President and CEO of the food bank, Shara Merten, said they are hitting a breaking point with summer days just around the corner. They serve more than 26-thousand people in need each year.

“Our schools are titled number one program so many of those students are already in need and once schools are out they don’t have the access to breakfast and lunch,” said Merten.

For the past six years, the food bank has teamed up with District one to provide feeding sites for students and in the summer the food bank feeds more than 100 students per day.

“When we were talking to the school districts, we asked if we can be a feeding site for the district because they didn’t really have anything like this in this area,” said Merten.

Another challenge that the food bank has encountered is the end of the harvesting season and the winter visitors that leave our area.

“Donors and our unemployment also spike because we don’t have our produce being harvested out in the fields because the season ends,” said Merten.

The food bank is looking for more volunteers and donations from the community at this time as summer is just around the corner.