SF-Marin food bank driver helps donations reach families in need
SAN FRANCISCO – With 24 trucks on the fleet, the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank serves 56,000 households a week.
Dominec Figueroa has been a truck driver with the Food Bank for about a year and he's up before the sun rises.
"Truck driving is a real skill," Figueroa told KPIX 5. "The emotions that I feel and see in other people when I'm bringing them food. Food brings people together on so many levels. To just to see that and be the person that is physically giving them the thing that they need, it just feels amazing."
Figueroa used to be a maintenance guy for an apartment building, he says he's used to fixing things. What he may not realize, he's still helping fix hunger for thousands of Bay Area families.
His route is one of roughly 65 deliveries a day for San Francisco-Marin Food Bank. Most deliveries are fresh fruits and vegetables, feeding 56,000 households a week.
The need is necessary, last year the Food Bank gave 67 million pounds of food in San Francisco and Marin alone.
Walter Alvarez volunteers at the Mission YMCA where Figueroa drops of pallets of food. Alvarez is also one who needs the food.
"I come here because food is so expensive nowadays," Alvarez told KPIX 5. "Eggs going up, milk going up, gas. Everything is so expensive now!"
"You really feel like you're making a big difference," said Figueroa. "Like I'm not saying other truck drivers don't make a difference in what they do, I'm saying when I bring the people the food, you can see on their faces how happy that I am there to bring them something that they need."
As long as there's a need for hunger. Figueroa will continue with his routes. He says they feed into his mission in fighter hunger one deliver at a time.