Sierra Community House Faces Funding Challenges, Expands Food Rescue Efforts
Amid rising living costs in the Truckee and North Lake Tahoe regions, Sierra Community House is intensifying its efforts to provide food assistance to community members in need. On a typical day in early June, employees at a local Raley’s grocery store prepared carts filled with food close to its sell-by date, but still safe for consumption. The selection included vegetables, bread, packaged items, and fresh crab legs, although no dairy or meat was available that day. Boliver, a dedicated worker, carefully loaded the food into a truck, ensuring it remained cold during the journey back to the nonprofit’s facility.
“I would say my job is kind of a 50/50 split between actually getting the rescue food, and then distributing it, so the first half of my day is usually driving around to grocery stores, picking up the donations, and then the second half would be actually giving it to the people,” she said.
Once back at the warehouse, Boliver swiftly unloaded the donations, knowing that much of the food needed to be distributed to families within a short timeframe.
Sierra Community House manages the only community food pantry in the area, and the demand for their services has grown as more residents struggle with the increasing cost of living. Executive Director Teresa Crimmens highlighted the financial challenges faced by many locals: “What we’ve seen over the last year or two is increased need, a lot more people coming, and people talking about, you know, they’ve never come to a food bank before, but because of the cost of gas and the cost of rent, they just can’t make ends meet anymore.”
The organization is also contending with the loss of a significant federal funding source from the USDA’s Local Food Purchasing Assistance program, locally known as “Farms Together,” which previously supported nearly all their fresh produce purchases. “With that funding going away, we’re really needing to figure out how we are going to pay for the produce, the fruits and vegetables,” Crimmens stated.
In response, Sierra Community House has expanded its food rescue partnerships with regional grocery stores, managing to save 22,000 pounds of food monthly that would otherwise be wasted.
Maria Palma
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KUNR Public Radio
For Boliver, these donations provide a sense of fulfillment. “Sometimes I’ll come in, and they have a whole pallet of milk and yogurt and cream and stuff like that, so it’s really great. People love it, and I get excited with the produce because it’s what people get excited about,” she remarked.
The nonprofit supports hundreds of households weekly across Truckee, Kings Beach, and Incline Village. Patrick Kratzer, the director of hunger relief operations, noted that the program’s reach extends even further monthly. “We see about 1,000 unique households every month, each of those is an average of a household size of three, so about 3,000 local community members would be impacted if the hunger relief program went away,” Kratzer explained.
As Sierra Community House adapts to the reduced federal funding, food rescue remains a vital strategy for keeping nutritious food available to families in North Lake Tahoe, while also reducing waste.
