Pop-Up Food Pantry At John Wayne Airport Offers Relief For Furloughed TSA Workers

SANTA ANA (CBSLA) — It's Day 2 at the pop-up food pantry at John Wayne Airport, where a conference room was transformed Monday into a mini-mart for furloughed federal workers.

Nearly 100 TSA employees visited this pantry in the first 24 hours, where tables were stacked with donated produce, canned goods, potatoes, hygiene items, and even a refrigerator stocked with milk and eggs.

Second Harvest Food bank set up shop on the arrival level at Orange County's Airport to service the 400 government employees
who are based at the airport.

All unpaid federal workers are invited to fill bags of groceries at this location.

Steve Rivera is in need but he's helping his TSA coworkers too: he takes the donated food home, cooks a big meal and brings it back to the airport for them to share.

"The supervisors have been working with us so we can eat a hot meal together and it's kind of alleviated the mental stress being able to share across the table," he said.

Food and personal hygiene items can be dropped off at the second harvest food bank in Irvine. Gas card donations can also be dropped off at the airport checkpoints.