The Fish Food Bank helps hundreds of families and is looking for more community help

The Fish Food Bank in Coachella helps hundreds of families a week. They collect food donations and give it to community members that need it. They are open from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday at 1612 1st St, Coachella, CA 92236.

They need more community help in order to help serve more families. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, they are seeing hundreds more people in need than before. To keep up with serving the community they are looking for donations to buy a couple freezers and van to pick-up larger donations. Ruby Barajas, the leader for Fish Food Bank, said, “When we get donations sometimes we don’t have the capacity to storage so we have to give it away in one day.” She explained that the rest of the people coming in the next day would miss out on those meals. With the pick-up van, she said, “When we get calls from grocery stores that they have big donations we have to decline or we don’t get the whole amount because we don’t have the capacity to pick it up.”

The Fish Food bank is also looking for more volunteers. To volunteer, organizers said all you have to do is show up at 7 a.m. the days they serve food. For those looking to make donations, you can bring the donations to the facility or give them a call for more instructions. They are taking financial donations and donations of canned goods or other sealed food items that have not reached the expiration date. Barajas added, “They just need to show up and have the will to help people”

Families who are in need of food can go from 9 a.m. - 10 a.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, or Friday. Marie Rosales, a volunteer, said, “Not the same people come everyday. They’re getting a little ticket where they come every 10 days.”

Barajas mentioned how thankful she is for those helping. She said, “Thank you to all the people that are donating and all the volunteers that I have here today because without them this wouldn't be possible.”

News Channel 3's Taban Sharifi will have more details tonight on KESQ.