What once took root as a small pantry started by mentors has been cultivated into a monumental resource within our community. For the last three years, Feeding San Diego has partnered with Nativity Prep to ensure that our families have pantry staples and fresh produce to provide their children with healthy meals at home. For this to be done, Nativity has become a site offering resources to serve our community; a food distribution site, and a food rescue site.
Every two weeks, Feeding San Diego arrives with food trucks filled with produce and other essential items for our families to take home. Our family liaison and Feeding San Diego volunteer, Dezaray Martinez, is in charge of sorting, organizing, and distributing all of the received shipments to our families. Receiving produce from potatoes, carrots, apples, oranges, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and cabbage, to nonperishables like beans, rice, tuna, and milk, this bi-weekly food distribution allows our families to receive fresh and clean groceries free of cost.
Additionally, every Monday morning, Dezaray leaves campus to begin her journey to a Feeding San Diego partner store to pick up that week’s food rescue. Once she arrives, departments bring out their portion of the rescue. Unloading and playing tetris, Dezaray loads the 8-passenger school van with all of the produce that has been given.
Back on campus, Dezaray will begin the unloading process into the school’s walk-in fridge and freezer, which was made possible through a generous grant from Feeding San Diego. For this part, Dezaray must make sure to weigh every single product she was given to complete the weekly report. Dairy, eggs, meats, vegetables, produce, bread, and pastries, is the order in which the food will be unloaded. Because of the 2-hour process, Dezaray finds it easy to prioritize the food that needs immediate refrigeration.
Once all the food has been arranged, Dezaray is ready to welcome families into the fully-stocked fridge. Every week and on a rotating schedule, grade-level families are invited to take from the fridge. As the cost of living continues to rise, food insecurity is a real obstacle many of our families have had to face. When Dezaray first began the food rescue program, she was surprised to see the variety of products being given to her, in particular the amount of pastries she was taking in. It wasn’t until she saw the families coming in to shop that she really noticed the impact of these new resources on campus. “With everything increasing in price, our families just buy what they NEED when grocery shopping. Everything else is a luxury, ” Dezaray shared. She sees firsthand how grateful the families were for the little things. The frozen pizza, the cookies, the cakes, the bagels, and the coffee bread, are always student favorites!
Dezaray has been indispensable in the development of these two Feeding San Diego programs. Feeding San Diego recognized her impact and awarded her the title of Volunteer of the Month for February! Through her hard work, Nativity Prep is the only school working as both a food distribution and food rescue site in all of San Diego. We are so proud and honored to be partners with Feeding San Diego. Keep up the amazing work Dezaray!
