3rd Annual Hunger Fighter Award (6) Finalists
Maria Lewis
Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank
Chris Nolan
St. Mark’s Episcopal Church
Alondra Lopez
ASI of CSUSM
Patty O’Connor
Feeding San Diego
Mim Michelove
Healthy Day Partners
Brent Wakefield
Meals on Wheels San Diego
Nominee Name: Maria Lewis
Organization: Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank
Title: CalFresh Lead Coordinator
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I am honored to nominate Maria Lewis for the Hunger Fighter San Diego Award. Maria has been instrumental in leading the efforts of the San Diego Food Bank's CalFresh Program and advancing the organization's mission to fight hunger and improve nutrition security throughout San Diego County. Her leadership, vision, and unwavering commitment to serving vulnerable populations have made a lasting impact on thousands of residents who rely on food assistance and nutrition benefits
Over the years, Maria has played a critical role in shaping and strengthening the CalFresh Program, ensuring that individuals and families have access not only to nutritious food but also to the long-term resources needed to achieve greater food security. As federal and administrative policies have evolved, Maria has consistently led her team through complex changes, adapting program operations while maintaining a focus on client service, accessibility, and equity. Her ability to navigate these changes has allowed the Food Bank to continue serving residents efficiently while ensuring that community members understand and can access available benefits.
Maria works tirelessly to ensure that every person who attends a food distribution, outreach event, or community resource fair feels heard, respected, and supported. She believes that enrollment assistance is about more than paperwork; it is about building trust and helping individuals feel comfortable navigating systems that can often seem overwhelming. Her compassionate approach has helped countless residents enroll in CalFresh benefits that provide consistent access to healthy, nutritious food.
Beyond direct service, Maria has helped shape the CalFresh Program through community engagement and partnership building. She regularly collaborates with stakeholders, nonprofit organizations, community leaders, and government partners to identify barriers to access and develop solutions that better serve residents. She has championed efforts to bring services into underserved communities and expand outreach opportunities throughout the region.
From San Ysidro to Fallbrook and the Mountain Empire region, Maria has worked to ensure that communities often underrepresented or geographically isolated have access to food assistance and CalFresh resources. Her dedication to reaching residents where they are, regardless of location, has expanded access to critical services across the county.
Maria's leadership exemplifies the mission of the San Diego Food Bank and supports the broader efforts of the county and its partners to serve underrepresented populations. Through her commitment, innovation, and compassion, she has helped ensure that thousands of San Diegans do not go hungry and have access to both nutritious food and essential benefits. Maria is truly a Hunger Fighter whose impact can be seen in communities throughout San Diego County. -
One of Maria Lewis' most significant accomplishments over the past year has been her exceptional leadership of the San Diego Food Bank's CalFresh Program, helping hundreds of San Diegans access vital nutrition assistance while strengthening the program's impact throughout the county. Maria and the CalFresh team successfully assisted more than 250 individuals in applying for, receiving, or renewing their CalFresh benefits, helping families, seniors, veterans, and individuals experiencing financial hardship gain consistent access to nutritious food. In addition, Maria and her team screened and connected more than 1,200 community members to critical resources throughout the fiscal year, ensuring residents were linked to services that support their overall health and well-being.
Maria's accomplishment extends far beyond these impressive numbers. Throughout a year marked by administrative and federal policy changes, she worked diligently to adapt outreach strategies, strengthen partnerships, and expand access to services across diverse communities throughout San Diego County.Maria also led efforts to connect with residents where they are by participating in community events, collaborating with nonprofit partners and stakeholders, and increasing outreach in underserved and geographically isolated areas. Her commitment to removing barriers to assistance has helped the program reach more people who may otherwise have gone without food support. -
One example that reflects Maria Lewis' compassion, determination, and commitment to serving the community involves a local resident who was struggling with food insecurity and caring for his disabled wife. Although he desperately needed assistance, he was hesitant to apply for CalFresh benefits because he believed recent policy changes and new eligibility requirements would result in his application being denied.
When Maria met him at a community outreach event, she took the time to listen to his concerns and understand his situation. Rather than simply providing information, Maria reassured him that he was not alone and that she would personally help him navigate the application process. She explained that while eligibility rules can be confusing, there are often pathways and exceptions that individuals may qualify for, and she was committed to exploring every option available to him.
As a CalFresh Coordinator, Maria worked closely with the resident throughout the process, answering questions, gathering documentation, and helping him understand each step. Her patience, empathy, and encouragement gave him the confidence to move forward with the application.
Within 30 days, the resident was successfully approved for CalFresh benefits and received the maximum monthly benefit amount available to his household. The impact was immediate and life changing. Combined with food assistance and nutrition programs provided by the San Diego Food Bank, these benefits enabled him and his disabled wife to have consistent access to healthy, nutritious meals every day.
What began as a conversation with a worried community member became a pathway to stability and food security. Maria's willingness to listen, advocate, and persist on behalf of others exemplifies the compassion and dedication that make her a true Hunger Fighter and an invaluable leader in the fight against hunger.
Nominee Name: Alondra Lopez
Organization: Associated Students, Inc. (ASI) of Cal State University San Marcos
Title: ASI Cougar Pantry Manager
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I am nominating Alondra Lopez for the Hunger Fighter Award because I have personally seen how much she cares about our students and how deeply she believes that no student should have to worry about where their next meal is coming from.
Alondra gives so much of herself to the ASI Cougar Pantry. She is constantly thinking about how we can do more, aim to reach more students, and to make the pantry a better resource for our campus community here at CSUSM. She understands that food insecurity can be a major barrier to student success, and she approaches her work with compassion, determination, and a genuine desire to help.
I have watched Alondra help transform the ASI Cougar Pantry from a small closet space into a much larger resource where students can access refrigerated, frozen, and ready-to-eat foods. She is never satisfied with simply maintaining what we have. She is always asking, “What else can we do?” She looks for new resources, new partnerships, and new ways to make sure students have access to food when they need it.
Her dedication is especially evident in the relationships she has built with retail rescue partners and donors. Because of her efforts, the pantry has been able to bring in more food and secure additional support to help sustain and grow its services. Every one of those partnerships means more food available to students.
What stands out to me most about Alondra is that she truly goes the extra mile. She is the person who says yes when help is needed. She will come in on her days off to make sure food deliveries and donations are not affected by campus closures. She works alongside students, supports the people who work in the pantry, and continues to move projects forward even when no one is asking her to.
Alondra does all of this because she cares. She sees the student behind every visit to the pantry and understands that providing food can mean giving a student one less thing to worry about. Her work has made the Cougar Pantry more accessible, more sustainable, and able to serve more students throughout the San Diego/San Marcos area.
I cannot think of someone more deserving of the Hunger Fighter Award. Alondra’s impact is not just measured by the amount of food brought into the pantry, but by the students who are able to stay focused on their education because she made sure they had access to it. -
It is honestly difficult to highlight just one accomplishment because Alondra has accomplished so much in the past year. If I had to choose one, I would highlight her ability to pursue and secure funding. Her success in obtaining grants and other resources has opened the door to meaningful growth for the ASI Cougar Pantry and has directly improved what we are able to provide to our students.
One example is a grant Alondra secured that allowed us to purchase a freezer. This may seem like a simple addition, but it has made a significant difference. Students had been asking for more access to frozen meat and protein, and this funding allowed us to finally meet that need.
She also secured funding for a new refrigerated van, which will allow us to pursue more retail rescue opportunities, including partnerships that provide frozen meals and other perishable foods. This means we can rescue more food that might otherwise go to waste and get it into the hands of students who need it.
Most recently, Alondra helped lead an effort to secure $1 million in state appropriations for the ASI Cougar Pantry. This funding will allow us to expand our pantry space and significantly increase our ability to serve students experiencing food insecurity.
While securing grants and funding may be the accomplishment, the real accomplishment is what Alondra has made possible because of that funding. She sees an opportunity, pursues it relentlessly, and then turns that opportunity into something that directly benefits students. Her work has helped us move from simply providing food to building a stronger, more sustainable food assistance program for CSUSM students and contributing to the larger effort to create a Hunger Free San Diego. -
One of the hardest parts of working in a food pantry is that we do not always get to see the full impact our work has on an individual or family. Students come in, select the food they need, and go back to their lives. We may never know what that food meant to them that day or what difference it made beyond that moment.
What I do know is how grateful our students are to have the ASI Cougar Pantry as a resource on campus. Students consistently tell us how much they value the pantry, and it is regularly mentioned as one of the best resources available at CSUSM. In fact, we have even heard from students who chose CSUSM in part because they saw that we offered meaningful resources to support students beyond the classroom.
I think about the students who come to the pantry every single week. For them, this is not simply a convenient campus resource; it can be an essential part of making college possible. Having reliable access to food means they have one less financial burden to carry while trying to pay for tuition, rent, transportation, books, and other necessities.
I truly believe that for some of the students who consistently rely on the pantry, the support Alondra has helped create could be the difference between being able to stay enrolled and ultimately graduate or having to leave college because they can no longer make ends meet.
We may not always know the individual stories behind every pantry visit, but we see the gratitude, we hear how important this resource is to students, and we know that Alondra’s work has helped make it possible for students to access food with dignity. That impact extends far beyond the pantry walls.
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Nomination #1: Mim works tirelessly to make sure San Diego’s food insecure population has access to organic, healthy food. I have never met a more dedicated person, promoting and supporting one of San Diego’s most vulnerable groups. Mim’s innovative ideas help get fresh food directly to those who need it most.
Nomination #2: Mim has been collecting backyard produce and sharing it with many organizations that feed the hungry.
Nomination #3: Mim has established a program to provide vegetable seedlings to underserved communities to teach them to grow their own vegetables. She organized planting fruit trees at a park to make fruit readily available to the public. She works with communities from Oceanside to the border.
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Nomination #1: There are numerous examples of how Mim adds to the conversation regarding Hunger Free SD. She opens her home for forums to problem solve major issues and resolve difficult roadblocks. Her ability to be a leader and a team player gives SD an edge up to open doors and promote important conversations.
Nomination #2: Mim has been sharing produce plantings with Feeding San Diego every other Saturday. I have been planting those tiny plants and on numerous occasions handed them out.
Nomination #3: In the past year Mim developed a program at the Community Resource Center that provides box lunches to the homeless on weekends. Prior to that the center was closed on weekends.
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Nomination #1: Mim impacts individuals daily! Her direct approach to handling the issues at the basic level of needs is impressive to witness. As a volunteer with Healthy Day Partners, I am honored to learn from Mim and her dedication to easing food insecurity in SD. Her ability to see need and problem solve for solutions is simply astounding.
Nomination #2: Mim collects home grown produce and deliver it to the Community Resource Center in Encinitas, where people enjoy fresh produce.
Nomination #3: Mim works with Feeding San Diego. She sets up a booth at their events where she provides free vegetable seedlings along with growing instructions and lots of encouragement. Many families return with photos of the plant full grown. They thank her for all of the vegetables the plant provided for their family. They also thank her for her encouragement as many have gone on to become real gardeners.
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I am nominating Christian Nolan because of her leadership in making food assistance more accessible and welcoming to families in San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood. As Outreach Coordinator at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Christian helps lead a food pantry that serves more than 300 families each week and over 1,600 families annually.
Christian understands that providing food is only part of addressing hunger. People also need to feel comfortable asking for help and confident that they will be treated with dignity. Many of the pantry’s guests speak languages other than English, including Spanish, Creole, and Vietnamese. As a native Spanish speaker, Christian has helped St. Mark’s better connect with Spanish-speaking families who may otherwise face language barriers when accessing services. Her presence helps guests understand the resources available to them and creates a greater sense of trust and belonging.
Christian also recruits volunteers from the surrounding community. This allows community members to be active participants in addressing hunger in their own neighborhood and helps new families feel seen, welcomed, and part of the solution.
Through her work, the pantry has increased its capacity and expanded the number of families it can support. Christian has also secured grants and other resources that allow St. Mark’s to meet needs beyond food assistance. Her work reflects a thoughtful approach to fighting hunger—one built on dignity, relationships, and a genuine understanding of the community she serves. -
One of Christian’s major accomplishments this year was expanding St. Mark’s capacity to provide food and other essential resources to families in City Heights. Through her efforts to secure new grants and resources, the food pantry has been able to increase its capacity and now serves more than 300 families each week and over 1,600 families annually.
Christian also helped organize St. Mark’s Back-to-School Bash, where 216 backpacks filled with school supplies were distributed to local children. The new funding she secured allowed St. Mark’s to increase the number of backpacks distributed compared with the previous year.
This accomplishment reflects Christian’s understanding that hunger does not exist in isolation. Families facing food insecurity are often balancing other expenses, including school supplies and basic household needs. By strengthening the pantry and expanding the Back-to-School Bash, Christian helped families access food while easing another financial burden at the beginning of the school year. -
One example of Christian’s impact is how she welcomed a food pantry recipient into St. Mark’s volunteer team. Christian recognized that this individual had more to offer the community than her circumstances might suggest and invited her to become an active part of the pantry’s work.
The volunteer later played an instrumental role in leading a cooking class fundraiser where attendees learned how to make chiles rellenos, a traditional Mexican dish. Christian created an opportunity for her to share her culture and knowledge while helping raise support for the pantry.
This experience allowed the volunteer to give back to a program that had supported her, but its impact went much further. She gained a meaningful leadership role along with a renewed sense of pride and purpose. Rather than seeing pantry guests only as people in need, Christian recognizes their talents and creates opportunities for them to contribute. Her approach strengthens the pantry by building a community where people feel valued, capable, and part of the solution.
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As chief operations officer at Feeding San Diego, the region’s only Feeding America partner food bank, Patty O’Connor oversees the sourcing, storage, and distribution of more than 43 million pounds of food annually. A champion of Feeding San Diego’s decentralized food rescue model, Patty has helped strengthen a network of more than 380 community partners that distribute food locally through charities, schools, faith communities, healthcare providers, and meal sites. Feeding San Diego rescues 90% of the food it distributes from more than 750 donors, including grocery stores, retailers, farms, and manufacturers. Under Patty’s leadership, the organization distributed more than 36.3 million meals last year while diverting 39.7 million pounds of food from landfills, helping reduce waste and prevent more than 35,000 metric tons of carbon emissions.
Patty joined Feeding San Diego during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the organization was rapidly expanding emergency food distributions. As she interacted with community members, she recognized a need for more culturally preferred foods and greater choice in the assistance being offered. She began advocating for a client-choice marketplace at Feeding San Diego’s headquarters, despite significant space constraints. Her persistence and creativity turned limited space at the headquarters into the Feeding San Diego Marketplace.
To bring the concept to life, Patty coordinated site visits with community partners to identify best practices and helped secure funding for the project. Today, the Marketplace serves an average of 2,165 households each month and distributes approximately 805,000 pounds of food annually. Supported by food rescued from local grocery stores, Starbucks locations, and community donations, the Marketplace provides a dignified shopping experience while creating an efficient outlet for rescued food and meaningful opportunities for volunteers to engage directly with their neighbors.
Over more than five years with Feeding San Diego, Patty has consistently guided the organization through periods of heightened need and crisis. During the government shutdown of 2025, she worked with sourcing and operations teams to secure an additional 430,000 pounds of food and coordinate 44 additional deliveries to community partners within two months. Early in the crisis, Patty spoke with Marketplace visitors and witnessed firsthand the anxiety households faced amid sudden financial hardship. She met neighbors who relied on SNAP benefits that had been disrupted, and federal employees were uncertain how long they could manage without a paycheck.
In response, Patty and her team quickly expanded Marketplace operating hours to ensure more people could access food assistance. The expanded schedule proved so effective that it remains in place today. Whether strengthening food rescue infrastructure, creating innovative solutions like the Marketplace, or responding to emergencies, Patty’s leadership reflects a deep commitment to ensuring that people facing hunger can access nutritious food with dignity while reducing food waste across San Diego County. -
One of Patty O’Connor’s most significant accomplishments in the past year was helping launch Feeding San Diego’s Seed to Feed Initiative, an innovative program designed to maintain access to fresh, nutritious food for families experiencing hunger while strengthening the local food system. When the federal Local Food Purchase Assistance Program was discontinued in 2025, funding that supported purchases from local farmers disappeared, threatening both food access for vulnerable households and a critical revenue source for regional growers. Rather than accept the loss, Patty worked to develop a sustainable solution. The result was Seed to Feed, a $1.5 million initiative funded by the Prebys Foundation that allows Feeding San Diego to continue purchasing produce directly from local farms and food producers.
As chief operations officer, Patty helped guide the program's strategy and implementation, ensuring that nutritious, locally grown food would continue to reach neighbors facing food insecurity. Through Seed to Feed, Feeding San Diego now purchases produce weekly from local agricultural partners and distributes approximately 48,000 pounds of fresh fruits and vegetables each month through its School Pantry Program, Mobile Pantry Program, and partner network. The initiative reaches an estimated 2,254 households every month, including families in rural and underserved communities with limited access to healthy food.
What makes this accomplishment particularly impactful is its dual benefit. The program not only increases access to nutritious food for children, families, and seniors experiencing hunger but also provides reliable financial support to local farmers, helping preserve San Diego County’s agricultural economy. Under Patty’s leadership, Feeding San Diego transformed a funding loss into an opportunity to build a more resilient, community-centered food system. Patty helped create a model that advances nutrition security, supports local agriculture, and moves the region closer to a Hunger Free San Diego. -
Patty believes caring for neighbors is everyone’s responsibility. As a mother of two grown children, she understands the importance of family, support, and stability. For the past decade, she has volunteered with Just in Time for Foster Youth, helping young adults transitioning out of foster care and into their first homes. As a move-in day volunteer, Patty shops for essentials, furnishes apartments, and creates welcoming spaces that feel like home. She strives to provide the kind of care and encouragement a parent would offer during a major life transition. One experience she will never forget was meeting a young woman who had lived in nine foster homes before turning 18. After helping prepare her apartment, Patty took her to lunch and listened to her story, reinforcing how meaningful a stable home and supportive relationships can be.
Patty also volunteers with the Solana Beach Presbyterian Church’s Foster Hope Ministry, which serves foster youth and foster families throughout North San Diego County. She helps coordinate the ministry’s annual Christmas celebration, ensuring nearly 180 children receive personalized gifts and clothing. Through one-on-one mentoring and her work with programs supporting former foster youth, Patty helps young people build confidence and independence as they transition into adulthood.
When 50 Afghan refugees arrived in San Diego after fleeing their homeland, Patty immediately stepped in to help. Over six months, she became a trusted resource connecting families with food assistance, transportation, clothing, and employment resources. She organized carpools for local students, mobilized neighbors to donate essentials, and helped two refugees secure jobs. Through her compassion, persistence, and hands-on support, Patty helped dozens of families establish stability, security, and a sense of belonging in their new community.
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I am nominating Brent Wakefield because he embodies what it means to be a true Hunger Fighter. Under his leadership at Meals on Wheels San Diego County, he has helped create a model that goes far beyond delivering meals, it addresses the whole person.
Meals on Wheels combines direct food assistance with wellness checks, supplemental groceries, pet food, CalFresh screenings, advocacy, data and strong community partnerships. Brent understands that hunger rarely exists in isolation and that food insecurity can be connected to health, transportation, financial hardship and social isolation.
What especially distinguishes Brent is his commitment to collaboration and data-driven solutions. Meals on Wheels shares data with organizations and actively participates in the cross-sector approach we often promote because we have seen how much more effectively we can serve individuals when organizations work together rather than in silos.
He has built an organization that not only delivers nutritious food, but also creates connections, identifies additional needs and helps people access the resources they need to remain healthy, safe and independent.
Brent isn't simply fighting hunger one meal at a time. He is helping build a stronger, more connected system of support for San Diegans and that is exactly what a Hunger Fighter represents. -
One of Brent Wakefield's major accomplishments this past year has been expanding Meals on Wheels' ability to address food insecurity beyond its traditional meal-delivery model through Groceries on the Go, a partnership with the San Diego Food Bank.
This initiative demonstrates Brent's commitment to collaboration and to meeting people where they are. By connecting supplemental groceries with the Meals on Wheels network, the partnership helps address the broader food needs of seniors who may require more than their regular delivered meals.
It is a great example of the data-driven, cross-sector approach needed to create a Hunger Free San Diego: identify the need, leverage community partners and make access to food easier for the individual.
Under Brent's leadership, Meals on Wheels continues to evolve from a meal provider into a broader food-access and support system connecting seniors to nutritious food, benefits, wellness resources and human connection.
That kind of collaboration doesn't just serve more people; it serves them more holistically. -
This one is personal for me.
Because of Brent Wakefield, I learned about the incredible work of Meals on Wheels and Serving Seniors. That connection ultimately benefited my own parents, Pilar and Reynolds Heriot.
My father has since passed away, and my mother is now 85. At a time in their lives when going to the grocery store became increasingly difficult, Meals on Wheels provided something incredibly meaningful: nutritious, appropriately tailored meals delivered directly to their door.
For my family, it wasn't simply about receiving food. It provided peace of mind knowing that my parents were getting meals with the nutritional elements they needed while also receiving the dignity and convenience of having that support come directly to them.
Brent's impact on my family is a powerful reminder that fighting hunger is deeply personal. The programs he leads don't just serve statistics or numbers, they serve someone's mother, someone's father, someone's grandparent.
My parents were among those people.
I am incredibly grateful that Brent's work connected my family to a resource that made their lives a little easier, healthier and more secure during a very important chapter of their lives. That is the kind of impact that stays with you.