08/11/2025
Thanks everyone who has donated!! We are still in need of donations!! Please donate if you can and please share!!
Donations needed please donate @ www.trinitycountyfoodbank.org or mail check or money order to Trinity County Food Bank P.O. Box 1123 Weaverville Ca 96093.
The Trinity County Food Bank is starting to face a financial dilemma after federal funding cuts.
Food donations and stocks have been confirmed to be OK, but changes to certain programs affecting the food bank’s cashflow have been seen measuring more than 30% of their operating budget.
The largest hits are to funding that had been coming from The Emergency Food Assistance Program started by the Biden administration in 2022.
An additional $500 million was promised to the program in October, but that funding dried up after shifts made by the Trump administration. Another program, administered through the USDA, the Commodity Credit Corporation, was also projected to give another $500 million to funding for food banks.
Food Bank Executive Director Jeffry England reached out through social media last week, asking for donations, explaining further the different expenses required to keep the food bank operational, besides food alone.
“We are losing co-funding of around 30-35% due to cutbacks in a portion of our administrative funding,” England stated in an online comment.
“Administrative costs are payroll, fuel, electricity, truck and liability site insurance, workers compensation taxes, truck maintenance and cost of warehouse supplies and on and on,” he stated. “We do receive small grants from time to time, but those monies are earmarked only to purchase food items, and we are not allowed to use any of the money for administrative costs.”
Chief Financial Officer for the food bank, Brian Poe, said the two programs’ funding cuts combined complicate the already complicated formulas used by the food bank to get federal reimbursements. Those cuts could lead to the food bank losing as much $200,000 if no changes are made.
Reimbursements happen quarterly and so far, he said they have been coming back more than 30% lower than they would have without the cuts and changes.
“You need to be aware we’re going to slowly go broke, unless something changes in the funding,” Poe said he told England after the most recent federal reimbursements were received.
He said he has reached out to state representatives on what the situation is like and has been successful in receiving a few additional grants, but so far, they can only be used for food purchases and not any of the operational costs of transporting, storing or maintaining the food bank’s warehouses or its fleet of delivery vehicles.
Anyone interested in donating to the food bank can do so on their webpage, trinitycountyfoodbank.org, or by mail to Trinity County Food Bank, P.O. Box 1123, Weaverville, CA 96093.
