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PHOTOS: California National Guard Helps Sacramento Food Bank During Coronavirus Outbreak

  •  Drew Sandsor 
  •  Andrew Nixon 
Monday, March 23, 2020 | Sacramento, CA
Andrew Nixon / CapRadio

California Army National Guard soldiers pack boxes at Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services in place of the food bank's regular volunteers.

Andrew Nixon / CapRadio

Members of the California National Guard have begun helping out at the Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the deployment of the troops on Friday in response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

First Lieutenant Jason Saldana is the officer in charge of the operation, which began over the weekend.

Troops have been helping with "forklift operation, inventory, transforming of products, and really got to work helping them with packaging," Saldana said.

"We want to try and feed 300,000, if that's the need," Saldana said. "At some point, you know as we get some data, we'll see if we can ramp up more, but we're hoping that it didn't go any higher than that."

Saldana says that these troops can work faster than the food bank's usual volunteer force.

"Within the first day they gave us half a day of work and we finished it in the first 15 minutes because the volunteer force they're typically used to, they're an older age bracket, they work at a nice leisurely rate, but these soldiers, young pups, they really hard charged it," he said.

California Army National Guard soldiers collect fruit into bags at Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services in place of the food bank's regular volunteers.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio

Food Bank President Blake Young welcomed the help. He says they've been hit by both a shortage of volunteers, many of whom are confined to their home, plus an increase in demand.

"Normally we feed about 150,000 people a month," he said. "We provide food to 220 agencies. Everybody in the community it seems like has interest in trying to feed more people. The need has exploded. I think an unintended consequence was we didn't know so many people were going to lose their jobs and so many seniors would be housebound."

He says food banks are considered an essential service. But even with the troops he says they still need additional volunteers since so many of their regulars are confined to their homes.

The food bank has lost about 70 percent of its volunteer force due to the pandemic and the order for seniors to stay at home, Young estimates.

Specialists Neslyn Cubangbang of San Pablo and Yadira Izaguierre of Riverside pack boxes for Sacrament Food Bank and Family Services clients.Andrew Nixon / Capital Public Radio

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    More about Coronavirus

  • NIAID-RML via AP

    Coronavirus In California: Latest Updates And Resources

    The coronavirus has impacted nearly every aspect of life in California and around the world. Here are resources and all our coverage at CapRadio and NPR.

 CoronavirusCoronavirus Community Response

Andrew Nixon

Multimedia Producer

Multimedia Producer Andrew Nixon illustrates CapRadio’s Web content with visual journalism including still photos and videos. He works in the news and information department, and on CapRadio’s documentary program, “The View From Here.”  Read Full Bio 

Drew Sandsor

Senior Producer, News

As Senior Producer of News, Drew works with reporters and anchors on the daily production and presentation of news stories on Capital Public Radio. He also works closely with the station's digital team on news coverage across various online platforms  Read Full Bio 

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