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The need for a large and substantial energy efficient commercial refrigerator is essential for the Santee Food Bank. With the ability to store fresh food, the Santee Food Bank which was established in 1983 is able to continue to offer its recipients a four-day supply of food and keep their doors open every Wednesday and Friday and the first and third Saturday of each month, with a completely volunteer staff. However, the systems they currently have are failing and are too small to meet the demand of their clients.
As the economic conditions have worsened, the rise in families they serve has matched the trend. Seven years ago, the Santee Food Bank was serving approximately 285 families each month. This past year, monthly averages held around 1,800 clients per month. To date, the Santee Food Bank has served 9,053 clients from January to June 2013, which equates to approximately 538 households of which 44-40% are households with children.
The need for new and efficient refrigeration is imperative in storing the food the Santee Food Bank receives from the many stores and donors in and around Santee. With limited operational hours, the ability to keep food fresh until distribution is a real concern. A commercial refrigeration system would fill this need.
The Santee-Lakeside Rotary Club recognizes that poverty exists within our own back yard and that nutrition is essential to the health and well being of all human life, but for children, it is essential to their physicial development and their ability to be able to learn. No child should go to bed hungry or anybody for that matter. We can help improve access to good nutritious food by assisting the Santee Food Bank in purchasing a very needed refrigeration unit. We all know that without proper nutrition a number of health conditions arise, some of them life threatening and at the very least dibiliating. We also know that for women who are pregnant, proper nutrition is vital to the proper development of the fetus. We shouldn't let poverty or the economic condition of our country go unaddressed. Providing a helping hand for this very vulnerable population is what Rotary is all about and we respectively request the District's assistance with a matching grant so we can make this dream a reality.
The Santee-Lakeside Rotary club has a long-established relationship with the Santee Food Bank. We participate annually in the Stomp out Hunger food drive in partnership with the US Post Office and the Santee Food Bank. Rotarians gather at Post Office and help with the trasferring of donated food items to bins and then to a truck that Rotary rents to transport donated items to the Food Bank. In addition, the Club has partnered with WalMart in collecting food items and school supplies for back to school efforts in partnership with the Santee Food Bank.
The Santee-Lakeside Rotary Club has a list of vendors that offer the type of refrigerator the Santee Food Bank requests, including estimated cost minus, shipping, installation, taxes and extended warranty. Models range between $3000 and $3400. The Santee-Lakeside Rotary Club would also like to include in the grant because no other source is available, the cost of shipping, installation, taxes, and an extended warranty which would ensure the proper lifetime of the refrigeration system.
The Club's involvement is ongoing and for the purpose of the grant Rotary is the benefactor - addressing an unmet need within the community through the purchase of this needed piece of equipment. We will continue our efforts to support the Santee Food Bank's efforts to serve as many hungry families as possible with very substance of life - food.
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