The Thomas fire affected many families in south Santa Barbara County. People working in the service industry faced precipitous loss of income, as the choking blanket of smoke drove away customers and forced hotels and restaurants to cut hours or close altogether. More than 10,000 Santa Barbara County children started missing the school meals they count on when local schools closed due to the Thomas fire. Power outages due to the fire could cause food to spoil, hurting CalFresh households without money to replace it.
No child should go hungry because of the fire. As a DSS employee, you can help by:
- Informing your CalFresh clients that they can apply for replacement benefits if they lost food due to a power outage caused by the fire---see this flyer. (The fire started December 4 but we received a waiver to extend the 10-day limit to 30 days, so we can accept requests for replacement until January 4, 2018.)
- Referring your clients to the services of our community partners---like Foodbank's healthy lunch program to replace school meals until school resumes in January.
- Representing DSS at a County-sponsored community recovery meeting, if your supervisor asks. The first one was held December 21 (learn more here), and more may follow.
- Making a donation to an organization that's helping fire victims. You'll find a list of several (and the donations they currently need) at https://www.countyofsb.org/asset.c/3539n.
Thank you for keeping Santa Barbara County strong.