On its 10-year anniversary, the community is needing more of the food bank's services than ever before.

The San Jose storage and distribution area for Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties is at full capacity, says Jennifer Luciano, the food bank's director of communications.

"Silicon Valley has been hit hard by the economy's downturn, and 2002 is the year of the greatest need" in the organization's history, she says.

Second Harvest works exclusively with nonprofit service agencies and food distribution sites, such as soup kitchens and senior nutrition centers. Between the two counties, the bank serves 670 such organizations. On an annual basis the bank distributes 26 million pounds of food that is donated from grocers, manufacturers and local growers.

Photograph by Moryt Milo School Bags: Church members annually sew more than 100 cloth bags for the school kit drive. Rulers, crayons, papers and pencils are put into the bags, which are sent to Third World countries.

For this year's drive, an unprecedented 5,000 barrels were sent out.

"One barrel this year will make about 10 cycles between the warehouse and being placed in the field," Luciano says.

For the holiday season, Second Harvest received requests for 107,000 turkeys and chickens.

The food bank can only provide 51,500 and is asking the community to donate the other 56,500 to fill the need.

Although Second Harvest is a highly recognized organization, it relies heavily on volunteers and donations for its operations.

Luciano calls the San Jose warehouse "the Cadillac of warehouses." Several volunteers buzz around the 65,000-square-foot warehouse, sorting foods, labeling packages and performing other tasks. Knowing that the food being inspected and repackaged will feed approximately 143,000 low-income people per month, it's worth the effort, the food bank volunteers say, so much so that a group of volunteers comes every Tuesday morning to help in any capacity they can. They aren't an established group, Luciano says. These eight to 15 volunteers are simply called The Tuesday Group.

"I had no idea what I'd be doing when I came in today," says Jane Carhart, one the group's volunteers.

On a recent Tuesday, she and others are working at a long metal table, placing stickers that read "Donate—Not For Sale" on cracker bags that were placed in boxes.

"I do this because people are hungry," Carhart says. "There's very little I can do for the famine in Africa, but I can do something about hunger in Santa Clara County."

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer Food Service: Volunteers at the Second Harvest Bank help serve 670 organizations. This year an unprecedented 5,000 food barrels were sent out into the community for donations.

A little ways down the line, Norm Townsend is carrying on a conversation with another worker while keeping pace with everyone else.

Townsend, however, can only feel the food he's handling. The 60-year-old retired information officer for the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority has been blind since age seven.

He retired in July and has volunteered at the bank since August.

"Whatever the other volunteers do, I do, too," he says. "One day I'm taking pastries out of boxes, and another day I'm sorting fruits and vegetables."

"It's very rewarding, and it's rarely the same each day," Townsend says.

While the bank's food is only distributed to places such as homeless shelters or soup kitchens, The Health Trust runs a Meals on Wheels program for Willow Glen residents who are housebound.

This organization provides a complete Thanksgiving dinner, which includes turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and pumpkin pie.

The organization serves about 300 clients, and 22 are in Willow Glen.

"Nutrition and isolation are major health concerns regarding the elderly," says Catherine Edwards, vice president of communications for The Health Trust. "Studies show that in the year 2020, about 20 percent of Santa Clara County's population will be 60 years or older."

Edwards says that most Meals on Wheels clients live alone but that's no reason for someone to miss out on a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer Feed the Hungry: Sandra De La Cruz, the head cook for the Emergency Food Consortium, picks up more than 2,500 eggs from the Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties to make approximately 30,000 meals a month.

The service organization also relies on volunteers to drive to O'Connor Hospital, 2105 Forest Ave., daily to pick up meals that are prepared for the organization to deliver to various clients.

Edwards says there are up to 50 volunteers on call, some of whom dedicate at least one morning a week or month to delivering meals to homes in the county.

Another Willow Glen group—Mennonite Brethren Church—provides an annual Thanksgiving dinner for the public, including members of its congregation, on Nov. 24.

Lincoln Glen Church, 2700 Booksin Ave., also has its dinner on Nov. 24.

Diane Eldridge, longtime church member and associate pastor, says, "It's one of our favorite times."

She says the annual dinner has been a tradition for several decades. The church also has three annual drives during the holidays, the school kit drive, the food drive and "the tin cup" offering. Attendees usually make a contribution, and the funds are donated to the Mennonite Central Committee, headquartered in Pennsylvania. The work feeds the hungry worldwide.

For more information or volunteering opportunities at the Second Harvest Food Bank call 408.266.8866, ext. 227.

For information on The Health Trust call 408.559.9385.