Stockton's Emergency Food Bank continues to serve despite 3 fires in a week

CBS News

5 hours ago

Stockton's Emergency Food Bank went from serving food to scooping ashes for a third time in the past week after an overnight fire.
"Somebody threw a incendiary device into our piles of cardboard," Community Relations Manager Alesha Pichler said. "It was actually a bundle of cardboard and started that fire. It's been quite the week."
The second fire was caused by leftover smoldering ashes, burning parts of their garden the following day.
"It started last Wednesday when some unhoused population residents that lives right behind us needed to start a fire for some reason," Pichler explained. "Unfortunately, the weather conditions were such that the wind kind of took over and continued to burn the dry grass, burning up a tree and coming over onto our property."
The third blaze ignited at 3 a.m. Wednesday and damaged an entire shipping container with thousands of dollars worth of donations.
"There were 18 pallets of donated items and goods that were to go out to the community that now are basically garbage, because we can't give that out," Pichler said.
But despite the flames, the food bank is rising from the ashes by continuing to serve hundreds of those in need.
"We didn't stop operations. We continue to give out the food that the community needs to survive. We couldn't do it without our volunteers. We're grateful for them and now here they are helping us with the cleanup efforts," she said.
Now, they're hoping the community can also help them so they can continue to help others.
"Any time there has been a call for help, maybe we're short on turkeys, or we're short on food, or we have no food, the community always comes together," Pichler continued. "If you can do a food drive at your place of business or amongst friends, please give us a call. If you just want to do a monetary donation, please just log on to our website."