She’s Known What It’s Like to Need a Hand

Concha De La Cruz knows what it’s like to walk into a food bank, ask for help and then get bombarded by personal questions.

Sixteen years ago, her life came apart when she lost her job after injuring herself at work. Her husband also became disabled, and all of a sudden, the mother of five, who had never faced hunger, had to face a gantlet of humiliating questions.

“Why are you here this month?” and “Why did you have so many kids if you can’t afford them?” and “Do you know about birth control?”

“That’s when my pride was put to the side and I had to to go and ask for food to eat,” she said. “You never know what’s going to happen to you in life,”

De La Cruz became director of the Buena Park Coordinating Council in March after volunteering for 16 years there. The title does not include a salary, but she says that doesn’t matter. She and the other volunteers at the food bank, which has been in the city for almost 35 years, share a kinship with the people who come asking for the basic necessities.

The organization is housed in what was once a post office and now has the look of a forlorn and almost empty warehouse. There are about seven refrigerators lined up across from boxes of food in the large room, creating an aisle. One refrigerator is filled with hot dogs someone contributed that morning, and another has three large birthday cakes. Lucky has been the only grocery store to regularly donate bread to the food bank, but on that morning, the store didn’t have bread, so the volunteers got cake instead.

As director, De La Cruz has implemented some changes with the food and clothing distribution. Before she took charge, residents were allowed a box of food every two months and five items of clothing. Now boxes are given out once a month, and people can take as much clothing as they can use.

The reason for the changes is not that there’s been an increase in donations, she said. On the contrary: The shelves are just about bare.

“But even with that box that we give, they’re still going to be hungry by the end of the month,” De La Cruz said.

According to De La Cruz’s figures, the number of families coming in has been steadily increasing every month, and the 53-year-old grandmother of 11 says she can’t bear to see any child go hungry. Lately, however, she’s been seeing too many.

Forty percent of the people who come in to the food bank are children.

“People need food year-round,” sums up no-nonsense Renee Ellerbe, a volunteer for 13 years. “People always think about giving at Christmas, but that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.”

To donate food or money to this nonprofit organization, call (714) 670-9002.

Ana Cholo-Tipton can be reached at (714) 966-5890.