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Marcos Fernandez, who has volunteered on and off for the last eight months, carries a box of food to a recipient on foot at the Verbo Food Pantry in North Fair Oaks on Oct. 16, 2024. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Maria del Socorro, a volunteer of over five years, packs a variety of different food into boxes at the Verbo Food Pantry in North Fair Oaks on Oct. 16, 2024. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Volunteers unload boxes of produce at the Verbo Food Pantry in North Fair Oaks on Oct. 16, 2024. They then divide the produce up into boxes containing a variety of food items for recipients. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Volunteers rush around unloadiing and packing boxes of food for recipients at the Verbo Food Pantry in North Fair Oaks on Oct. 16, 2024. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
Verbo, a church in unincorporated North Fair Oaks is facing an uncertain future as it has been hit with a 25% monthly rent hike. The church’s rent will be raised from $20,000 to $25,000 monthly starting Nov. 1, according to Verbo’s pastor Orlando Cardona.
Cardona said that since the church moved into the space that they currently occupy 17 years ago, the rent has been increasing steadily at about 3% per year, until the church received a letter from their landlords earlier this year letting them know that their rent would be increasing steeply.
Though church services fill the building on Sunday, every Wednesday, hundreds of cars line up outside the church for a different reason — to receive groceries from the food distribution center that Verbo runs.
Verbo hands out full bags of groceries to families at their weekly Wednesday distribution, and they serve another group of families on Friday evenings. The distribution center is run by dozens of volunteers, many of whom had previously used the food distribution center themselves.
Cardona said that the number of families that need Verbo’s food distribution fluctuates depending on economic conditions and other factors, but last month approximately 1,700 people made use of the church’s food distribution service each week. This, he says, is a dramatic increase in people who need food, even since this summer.
Verbo received the food that it distributes through donations from local grocery stores such as Lucky, Trader Joes, Costco and Target, though it is also supplied by Second Harvest of Silicon Valley.
Cardona said that this food distribution location is extremely important to the community in part because of its physical location, as many of its clients do not have access to cars and must walk to the church to receive food. Additionally, Verbo’s distribution program does not require its clients to present them with any paperwork to receive food.
Yasmin Busio, center, loads a box of food onto her stroller at the Verbo Food Pantry in North Fair Oaks on Oct. 16, 2024. Busio lives nearby and comes to get food on foot, using the stroller to help transport it back home for her family. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Recipients on foot wait in line at the Verbo Food Pantry in North Fair Oaks on Oct. 16, 2024. Many who visit the food pantry live in the neighborhood and don’t have vehicles. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney. 
Eric Sanchez and Patricia Lopez chat with a recipient who arrived on foot as they fill her cart with food at the Verbo Food Pantry in North Fair Oaks on Oct. 16, 2024. Photo by Anna Hoch-Kenney.
“As you can see, there are a lot of people who walked here from the North Fair Oaks community,” he said, gesturing at the line of people waiting to pick up groceries. “There is no other food distribution program close by, so if we’re not able to serve these families, they’re going to have problems bringing food to their tables. They barely make it to pay rent.”
Communities of color, like North Fair Oaks, have been hit the hardest by food insecurity. According to September 2024 data from the California Association of Food Banks, 35% of Black households and 31% of Hispanic households are facing food insecurity, compared to just 15% of white households in the state. According to Cardona, approximately 90% of the households that use the church’s family center and food distribution services are low-income and Spanish speaking.
Several nearby elementary schools offer occasional monthly grocery distribution, but Verbo’s food distribution center is the only free food that is available on a weekly basis in North Fair Oaks, according to Second Harvest’s map of food resources in the Bay Area.
“We are right here where the need is,” he said. “Anybody can say ‘well just look for a cheaper place,’ but everything is so expensive right now that even though we’re paying a lot more money, if we move, we’d have to pay double what we’re paying right now.”
“We are right here where the need is. ‘Anybody can say ‘well just look for a cheaper place,’ but everything is so expensive right now that even though we’re paying a lot more money, if we move, we’d have to pay double what we’re paying right now.”
Verbo pastor Orlando Cardona
Verbo is currently located in a former print shop on the 2700 block of Bay Road. Its front door is right across the street from Stanford University’s new Redwood City Campus, which opened in 2019.
“(The print shop) building was all destroyed, and we remodeled everything,” Cardona said. “We have many different classrooms, and even a space for indoor soccer, along with our warehouse for the food.”
Cardona said that in the 17 years that Verbo has been at its Bay Road location, the neighborhood has changed a lot, as Stanford and tech companies like Meta have grown. He is worried that if a company offers to buy Verbo’s building from their landlord, the church will have no recourse and nowhere to go.
Verbo functions as more than a church and food distribution service, the nonprofit also provides family services to the local community, such as after-school tutoring and martial arts programs for kids, nightly indoor soccer and English as a second language classes for adults. Cardona says that these programs serve the function of keeping kids off the street and out of trouble after school.
Cardona hopes that the church and food distribution center will not have to relocate, but the church is still figuring out how it will make ends meet following the rent increase on Nov. 1.
“People have been giving us donations,” he said. “Long term, I hope there is somebody who has a warehouse who will tell us that we’re more than welcome to move there and keep going with the program.”
Verbo isn’t the only food distribution service that has been impacted by rent hikes. In June of this year, Second Harvest had to close its largest warehouse in San Jose due to a looming rent increase, and several other food banks around the Bay Area are facing similar struggles.
If you need food bank resources, check out Second Harvest’s map of food resources in the Bay Area at shfb.org.
Learn more about Verbo at verboredwoodcity.org.
