SAN DIEGO (KGTV) — According to new data from Feeding America, nearly 700,000 seniors in California are facing food insecurity.
ABC 10News stopped by a local neighborhood doing what they could to help each other in tough times.
“It's the rent; it’s the cable bill. It's the car payments and it’s the insurance. Everything is…is outrageous,” said Sharon Johnson Oakley, who has lived at Grand View Terrace Mobile Home Park in Vista for nearly a decade.
Like many senior San Diegans, she’s still working at age 70 to make ends meet.
“I wanna retire, but I can't afford to retire,” she said. “I have to work in order to make it.”
Once a week, some of the able-bodied seniors in the neighborhood volunteer and set up a food distribution on-site.
Sharon and other seniors in the community said it’s a huge help.
“There's no need to be hungry,” said Rosa Davis, who works with Feeding San Diego and Gleaning Field Foundation.
Rosa has lived in this neighborhood for 15 years. She’s the one who first saw the need in the neighborhood: not everyone could afford fresh groceries, and not everyone had access to transportation.
Local seniors are helping each other fight food insecurity. Able seniors can go to grocery stores nearby that partner with Feeding San Diego and rescue food that would otherwise go to waste and bring it back to the neighborhood.
“There's not enough people willing to get up and do this. It's work, but it's rewarding,” she said.
According to Feeding San Diego, the organization kept 31 million pounds of food from going to waste last year alone and helped feed thousands of seniors facing food insecurity.
“To hear them say thank you and we appreciate you, and I'm saving money, you know…that really blesses me.”
