It was still dark out on March 21, 2015, when a person ignited a stack of wooden pallets on a loading dock just off West Market Street in Salinas. The arsonist returned three times, adding material to their pile of kindling until it really caught fire, eventually consuming four trucks, damaging several more, and destroying the loading dock. These actions were captured on a camera, but due to the distance and darkness of the scene, no suspect was ever identified.
A year and a half later, the loading dock is rebuilt and replacement trucks have been purchased. For safety, there’s a new 8-foot-tall chain link fence with three strands of barbed wire above it.
But the Food Bank for Monterey County is still getting ready to move.
“We’ve recovered from the fire as much as we are going to recover,” Food Bank Executive Director Melissa Kendrick says. “We’re back to where we were before.”
That status, she adds, is “not good.” The refrigeration system shows signs of rust at its top, evidence of water damage during the 2015 firefight; an old wood base around the interior perimeter of the walk-in poses potential food safety concerns; and the 10-foot ceilings are too low for stacking pallets tall, so the 25,000-square-foot warehouse – originally built for a tea-packing company, then used for electronics – is crammed.
Cases of instant mashed potatoes are stacked nine tall, their max height. Just-delivered organic cauliflower is stacked outside the walk-in, which is already packed with cases of Driscoll’s strawberries and Taylor Farms bagged salad mix.
In the back of the warehouse, a line of three women – who are employed here through a program run by Goodwill to get single mothers back to work – have created a small assembly line, packing hundreds of bags for the Emergency Food Assistance Program, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Bryani Veitenheimer and Maria Maqueda load clear plastic bags with a medley of prepackaged foods: Two pounds each of white rice and brown rice, and two pounds each of pinto and great northern beans, plus a pound of spaghetti, a box of raisins, a jar of peanut butter and a can of corn. Then Maria Fabian twists each bag into a loose knot, and tosses the completed EFAP bundle into a bin.
“This is what the government thinks can feed a family of four for a month,” Kendrick says.
“If I do it right, that would last me two and a half weeks,” Maqueda says. Doing it right means cooking enough for her three children. If there are leftovers, she’ll eat some herself, but she relies mostly on spare crackers and a king-sized Snickers bar every few days during hard times. And she has a reliable strategy to avoid feeling hungry: “I drink lots of water.”
Across the room, there’s another pile of bins with 2,000 pre-packed brown bags, these for kids in four elementary schools, who will take them home to help fill in on the weekends. Today, each bag is stuffed with a box of shredded wheat cereal, two granola bars, a box of instant mac-n-cheese, a can of tuna and two squeezable fruit packs.
“When we distribute on Fridays, you would think we’re giving them a video game, they’re so excited,” Kendrick says.
Kendrick started out as a volunteer at the food bank before becoming development director, then executive director shortly before the fire. She is gearing up for a two-month annual campaign that kicks off Nov. 1; amid pallets of russet potatoes, beans and bins of Entenmann’s donuts, donation barrels are stacked four high, waiting to be distributed.
Until holiday-season giving, the shelves at the front of the food bank – where representatives from churches and shelters who distribute food can effectively go shopping – are relatively bare. There are signs up with maximum numbers – three jars of pasta sauce, four boxes of corn flakes – for each “shopper.”
“We are completely out of donated food right now, which is why we’re putting limits,” Kendrick says.
The Food Bank is in contract to buy property just two blocks away, now a vacant lot. Kendrick is also kicking off a $10 million capital campaign for the new spot, which she hopes to break ground early next year. The size of the warehouse will be double, and refrigerated area will increase by about 400 percent.
As she prepares to go out asking for donations again this year, Kendrick says she’ll rely on her skills in public relations in the private sector. For years before moving to Carmel, she lived and worked in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and eventually Silicon Valley, doing damage control and crisis management for corporate clients. “I think development is like the sales force of nonprofit world,” she says. “That’s maybe where I have a competitive edge.”