The campaign comes close to summer, the toughest time for low-income families, as they rely heavily on free- and reduced-lunch programs to feed their children during the school year. Summer also is a notoriously difficult time to raise money, said Kathy Jackson, CEO of Second Harvest Food Bank, the charity being helped.
She said the charity raises about $1 million in a typical summer, to be shared among San Mateo and Santa Clara counties. "There's so much more we can do to address hunger in families with kids."
Joining the Stand Up For Kids Campaign as co-chairs are Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's chief operating officer; John Donahoe, former eBay CEO; Eileen Donahoe, director of global affairs at Human Rights Watch; Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's chief technology officer; and Erin Hoffman, a Facebook technologist.
"There are so many things about the world we can't change -- this is something we can," Sandberg said in a news release. "Every child deserves to go to bed without hunger and have the chance to meet his or her full potential."
Jackson said 37 percent of children enrolled in local schools qualify for food-assistance programs, which dry up in the summer.
"Menlo Park is one of the areas, as is Palo Alto, where rents have gone up faster than other areas of the Bay Area," she said. "We're seeing more families in need. ... We're seeing a level of increase in demand we haven't seen since the economic downturn."
The campaign is targeting $7 million to support an ongoing expansion of school and library pantries. That plan includes starting a pop-up pantry at two Ravenswood City School District schools twice a month and expanding pantries in the neighboring Redwood City School District. Second Harvest has already added 30 pantries at schools in its coverage area in the past year.
"The dollars we raise from this effort will help us expand our work," said Jackson, adding that Second Harvest feeds all family members in its summer programs. "It's really to ensure any child, any family member, who needs a healthy meal can get one."
It has 700 total distribution sites and works with 330 local nonprofits to collect and distribute nutritious foods such as fresh fruit and vegetables, milk, peanut butter, eggs and chicken. Second Harvest also provides nutritional education at its distribution sites.
"There's no point in handing somebody a spaghetti squash and they don't know what to do with it," said Jackson. "Often times, families that are dealing with hunger are going to go for the cheapest high-calorie foods, which may be fast food."
©2016 the Palo Alto Daily News (Menlo Park, Calif.) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.