Laura Perez of Lake Forest shops for groceries at South County Outreach, a food distribution center, in Irvine on Friday, February 24, 2023. (Photo by Mark Rightmire, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Thank you to the Orange County Register for including South County Outreach as part of this very important conversation.
Nearly 300,000 Orange County households will no longer see a pandemic bump in benefits that has been helping with buying food for nearly three years. The additional emergency money CalFresh recipients were receiving as part of pandemic assistance is ending, meaning many OC residents will have less money to spend on feeding families.
The pending reduction in benefits has been dubbed a “food cliff” by some, and Orange County agencies and food banks, including our partners like Second Harvest Food Bank of Orange County, have been preparing to help soften the landing. Though they knew it was coming, officials only learned after December’s congressional vote on its next spending bill that the payments would stop in March. And food pantries, like South County Outreach, are already seeing the amount of people looking for food is steadily increasing.
See photos of the SCO Food Market and read the full article by clicking here.
