Sonoma County residents, Redwood Empire Food Bank, join forces to tackle hunger

At a time when many people are forced by a global crisis to line up to receive free food, it’s uplifting suddenly to see many others pulling up to drop-off sites to give freely to grocery-and-cash collection drives.

Cities across Sonoma County are partnering with the Redwood Empire Food Bank to help meet the pandemic-fueled surge in demand for charitable groceries. The cities are hosting drive-thru food drives and actively encouraging their residents to support the REFB by dropping off bags of food or cash donations, or by making contributions to the REFB online.

So far, the cities’ drive-thru events have brought to the food bank more than 5,000 pounds of food and $65,000.

On Friday, the city of Sonoma conducted its second such drive. For five hours, caring people with bags of food in their cars and/or monetary donations in their hands pulled into the parking lot at Sonoma City Hall, on the town plaza.

Properly masked and gloved Redwood Empire Food Bank staffers were there to lift bagged, nonperishable food from the donors’ trunks or back seats or cargo areas, and/or to accept cash or checks for the food bank.

There was also a drive-thru food drive Saturday at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds in Petaluma. And there will be one Monday at Cotati’s Ray Miller Community Center, and Thursday at Santa Rosa City Hall.

All of the food-and-dollars drives run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. More will be scheduled in future weeks to help the Redwood Empire Food Bank meet the demand for free food that has increased dramatically as people are put out of work and their savings are drained by the pandemic.