A prolonged government shutdown, widespread immigration sweeps, a global pandemic and inflated food prices – these are just some of the many of the challenges that have elevated the need for food in Orange County for the last few years.

Amid these hurdles, OC’s two food banks and their network of hundreds of pantries have continued to step up to feed the region’s neediest families even as they brace for their latest challenge –  drastic cuts and changes to CalFresh food stamps and Medi-Cal health insurance programs.

[Read: OC’s Poorest Brace For Cuts to Food Stamps and Health Insurance This Thanksgiving]

At the same time, the pantries and the food banks have been able to keep families nourished thanks in part to the volunteers who distribute groceries week after week and month after month.

“We continue to rely on a supplemental labor force that is willing to come out here every day and help,” said Claudia Bonilla Keller, CEO of the Second Harvest Food Bank of OC.

“A key part of what drives us is volunteer labor.”

LaVal Brewer, president and CEO of South County Outreach, said the nonprofit’s volunteers will play a vital role in helping families navigate the health insurance and food assistance program changes and connecting them to resources.

“Our neighbors are the ones who are volunteering in our pantry,” Brewer said. “Our volunteers and other nonprofit volunteers are really about activating people for purpose, and when you get a chance to live your purpose, it brings joy to your life.”

The nonprofit started over 35 years ago by the late Ray Havert, an insurance representative, and now operates a food pantry and helps prevent residents from becoming homeless. They offer roughly 1,000 volunteer opportunities a year

Volunteers at hundreds of pantries across Orange County are helping feed people like Ernesto Trejo, a Tustin resident who worked as a waiter at many hotels in OC, and their families.

“I am already retired, the money they give me is not enough to get by. If I pay just the rent where I live now with my daughter, the money they give me wouldn’t be enough. It would all go there and I’d have nothing left,” he said in an interview in Spanish last week.

“So I looked for options like this one here to help us.”

Trejo comes to Latino Health Access’s Friday distribution at 5 a.m. and waits until the distribution starts at 11 a.m. to get food. He has been going to the distribution for two years.

This Thanksgiving, Voice of OC is highlighting some of the volunteers helping residents like Trejo in Orange County put food on the table.

Meet The Volunteers Helping Feed OC

Raul Ledesma and his wife Cristina Avila, Santa Ana residents, have been helping out at Latino Health Access’s weekly pantry for the past two years.

Ledesma said seeing people happy is what motivates him to volunteer, adding it’s important to give back

“The situation we’re experiencing is why people are coming for food assistance, out of necessity, because of everything going on right now – the raids and they took away food stamps – that’s a big reason why people come asking for help,” he said in an interview in Spanish.

Avila said she understands what the people waiting in line for food are feeling because she has experienced it.

“I like helping the people that come to pick up food. A lot of people come in wheelchairs and we help them,” she said in an interview in Spanish.

Parker Kuo, a volunteer with the Seva Collective food pantry since it started out in 2020, said it is essential to help out as food becomes less affordable.

“People are worrying about, you know, having enough food to get through every day. The work that we do here is becoming especially important, because this is a primary source of food for a lot of people,” he said in an interview.

“Sometimes people just need some help.”

Kuo, a 19-year-old studying neuroscience at UCLA, helped out at Seva Collective’s Thanksgiving distribution in Santa Ana this past weekend supported in part by Mayor Valerie Amezcua’s office.

Gerry Ransom, a volunteer with South County Outreach, said he started helping out because he wanted to be more involved in his community.

“The thing that I have found that people need as much as the food we provide, is some respite and period to relax a bit and see that their needs are being met,” he said. “That’s the happiest part of my job is getting to talk to people and smiling at them and welcoming them and letting them pick out their food and thanking them for coming.”

Ransom, a Dana Point resident, has been volunteering with the nonprofit for two years in the pantries produce department.

Deena Singh, a 15-year-old volunteer with the Seva Collective – a food pantry her mother, Bandana, started – said she wanted to help out as people lost their jobs amid government mandated shutdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Food is a necessity for all of us and seeing people that can’t afford these basic necessities, I just think that we really need to make sure we can help in every way we can,” she said. “It’s just really been a positive thing in my life – every Saturday, just coming out here helping.”

Singh, a Tustin Unified student, started helping out at the age of 10 and has started a new initiative called Seeds for Seva – distributing produce seeds to the families that attend the distributions to grow vegetables on their own.

Arline Esponsito, who has volunteered with South County Outreach for about a decade, said she loves helping people and encourages people to volunteer.

“I volunteer at the church, and then I heard about the food crisis at the time, and I looked around and I found South County Outreach and  I just loved their mission, and I believed in it,” she said in a phone interview.

“They’ll find something that they’ll enjoy doing.”

Olga Vargas, a Santa Ana resident who has volunteered at the weekly Latino Health Access distribution for three years, said volunteering has taught her patience.

“I like to assist the people, help the people and talk to the people,” she said. “Sometimes they just want to talk to people.”

Mirella Vargas, Olga’s sister who has been helping out at the distribution for a year, said she volunteers because of her mom, Ana Maria.

“My mom used to do it, even though she was 80 something, she’d still do it,” Mirella said. “I enjoy being around the people. You miss when somebody’s not here.”

Sandra Ramos, a volunteer with United Across Borders, said she started helping out 12 years ago to give back to the community, adding the experience highlighted the importance of being compassionate.

“Growing up my parents were hard workers and my dad worked in the fields. There were seven kids. I know what my parents went through to provide,” Ramos said in an interview.

“Everybody has a story, and you have to be compassionate with everybody. Just because they’re here, you don’t know what they’re going through.”

Ramos, a Santa Ana resident, helped out this past weekend at a drive thru Thanksgiving distribution hosted by Supervisor Doug Chaffee, United Across Borders at ICNA relief.

Carolina Osoria, an Anaheim resident and a volunteer for ICNA relief at the distribution this past weekend, said there is a high need in the community for food.

“Unfortunately, I see a lot of kids in the cars,” she said in an interview.

“Anybody at any place, doesn’t matter your occupation or where you live or your background, anybody is prone to poverty at some point and you probably know a person who’s struggling either financially or with putting food on the table, and you have no idea that they’re struggling, because most people are not vocal about it,” Osoria said.

Baani Kaur Singh, a 16-year-old volunteer with Seva Collective, said helping people is part of her religion as a Sikh.

“Since I was little, I’ve kind of grown up with this mentality of selfless service,” Singh said in an interview. “I really enjoy helping people. It’s something that I actually look forward to at the end of every two weeks.”

Kaur Singh, an Orange County School of the Arts student who has been volunteering since she was 11, said it’s taught her how lucky she is.

“It’s important to see that not everyone around me is as fortunate as I am, and the only difference is the place we were born into,” she said.

CalFresh’s Impact on Hunger in Orange County

As they brace for cuts to CalFresh and eligibility changes, the OC Hunger Alliance is still dealing with the impacts of the disruption to the food stamps program caused by the recent government shutdown.

Mike Learakos, CEO of Abound Food Care, said the disruption might lead local families to prepare for the next crisis.

“What they’re going to use their SNAP benefits for are perishable foods, and then they’re still going to keep going to nonprofit agencies for the non perishable food that they can in some ways, kind of store for the next disaster that comes, meaning the interruption. There’s a hoarder mentality that might be developing as a result of the interruption,” he said.

Nearly one-third of Orange County’s 3.1 million residents rely on CalFresh food stamps.

Food banks leaders say a complete disappearance of the food assistance program would have a devastating ripple effect in Orange County, not only with families spending less on other needs like housing and health care, but on the economy as a whole.

“CalFresh has brought anywhere between $750 and $850 million of food benefits to vulnerable families in Orange County,” said Mark Lowry, director of the OC Food Bank in an interview last week.

“It would be reasonable to expect that those other basic needs go unmet to a degree that they haven’t in the past, and that it would be likely to expect to see an increase in evictions and connect notices and people not addressing their health care in a preventative sort of way and winding up in emergency rooms.”

Hosam Elattar is a Voice of OC reporter. Contact him at helattar@voiceofoc.org or on Twitter @ElattarHosam.