March 25, 2020, Englewood, New Jersey—Despite the cold and dreary day, cars arrived at CFA locations and left with food, smiles and friendly, socially-distant waves.  In Englewood, Hackensack and Saddle Brook, Center for Food Action resumed distribution, on a reduced schedule, to help residents of Bergen County and Upper Passaic County needing help to put food on their tables during the COVID-19 crisis.

“The impact of the pandemic has created unique challenges to organizations like ours,” said Patricia Espy, CFA Executive Director, “normally we have many volunteers packing groceries for thousands of low-income residents each month. We’re now distributing food via Drive-up, Appointment Only distributions in order to continue to serve low-income families and individuals throughout our community at a time when they need it the most.”

Today’s families received meat, eggs, cheese, fresh produce, toilet paper and thanks to Community Food Bank of New Jersey a box containing canned goods and non-perishable items designed to create forty meals.

CFA has been providing emergency food assistance for forty-four years and has always relied upon the support of our volunteers and the community. In response to the Coronavirus, CFA has implemented several new procedures to drastically reduces personal contact.

“We can no longer accept food donations because we have too few volunteers to sort and date the items.” explains Espy, “what we really need are donations of funds and supermarket gift cards.  Funds allow us to purchase large quantities of food, requiring no sorting or dating, and that means we can focus our resources on getting food to the people who need it most.”