Working Together to End Hunger

We are a community supported food pantry and kitchen located in the primarily agricultural town of Watsonville, California. We feed, serve, and support the hungry people of our community, including working poor families, migrant farm workers, and elderly, disabled, and homeless individuals.

We hope that you will get to know us and want to become personally involved in our hunger relief efforts.

Donations are always greatly appreciated. The dollars we receive provide meals for our neighbors in need. There are many "hands-on"opportunities to help in our mission. Volunteers serve in many capacities in our kitchen and pantry programs, serving on our Board of Directors, participating on fund raising and event committees, and assisting with office work and in numerous other special projects.

Contact us for more information about how you can get involved. Every action and every contribution makes a difference in the fight against hunger in our community.

Our Mission

We provide a hot meal at mid-day Monday through Friday, year around. We are open every weekday to provide staples and perishable groceries to supplement the diets of individuals and families.

Last year, 2011, was another busy year for Pajaro Valley Loaves and Fishes. The pantry program received 9,079 visits by 2,371 households consisting of 7,211 people of which 3,080 or 43% were children under 18 years old. Approximately 44 of these households (1,050), representing 2,942 people, including 1,211 children, visited the pantry for the first time in 2011. The number of pantry visits has more than doubled since 2007, a compound annual growth rate of 18.7%.

Our hot lunch program served 26,269 meals to seniors, disabled, low income families and homeless individuals during 2011. This number reflects a 54% increase over the number of meals in 2007, a compound annual growth rate of about 11.3%.

We are the only pantry in the area that is open five days a week, ready to provide immediate assistance. In order to meet the demands arising from increasingly larger numbers of needy people, we have extended working hours of salaried staff and drawn on increased numbers of volunteer helpers. Our extended hours provide a special time to accommodate the large number of emergency referrals we receive from the Second Harvest Food Bank.