Rachel De La Cruz lives in Madison, CA, a quiet, unincorporated town just southeast of Esparto with a big sense of community. Twice a month, you’ll find Rachel helping lead a local Public Community Food Distribution outside the Service District building where neighbors gather. It’s part of a long-standing tradition in Madison: when someone’s in need, the community shows up.
Thanks to volunteers like Rachel, this effort now reaches nearly a third of Madison’s residents. At Yolo Food Bank’s annual Appreciation Event, we were thrilled to recognize Rachel’s dedication with the Rural Community Ambassador Award. Her steady commitment helps keep food on the table for so many families in her hometown.
Due to major cuts from the USDA and other government sources, Yolo Food Bank is facing a nearly $2 million shortfall from our $5.1 million operating budget this coming fiscal year. This is a steep hill to climb—but our community has never backed down from a challenge.
Rachel and the other volunteers are helping Madison face these challenges and come together to feed their neighbors. We caught up with Rachel to hear more about how she got started volunteering and the impact she sees in her community each month.
A Conversation With Rachel:
Yolo Food Bank: Tell me a little about yourself. How long have you lived in Madison?
Rachel: My whole life. With the exception of a couple of years when I lived in Esparto, I’ve lived here all my life. My family has lived here. I have family on every street, so it’s a big family. My husband and I have two boys, and five grandsons.
Yolo Food Bank: That’s fun that they’re all in the community and still living around town. I would guess that means you know Madison pretty well.
Rachel: I worked in Sacramento for almost 40 years, so I kind of lost track of people here in town because I was gone 10, 12 hours a day on those days. I worked for the state for almost 40 years. I commuted from Madison to Sacramento every day, so now that I am retired I have more time to spend being with people here.
Yolo Food Bank: What are some things about this community and the area in general that
have stood out to you?
Rachel: The people are always willing to help you with whatever you need. When we have town meetings or, for example, the water district meetings held every month, nobody comes to the water meetings, haha. But when there’s an issue that affects the whole town, they will show up.
I remember years ago we had major flooding issues here. And this young man came to work with us and helped us organize and get some things done to help with the flood. When it matters the most, people will come. Even though there’s a language barrier for most of them, they will come.
Yolo Food Bank: So, if I understand correctly, somebody else said, “Hey, we should have a food bank distribution here.” What compelled you to help her?
Rachel: When I retired in 2012, one of the ladies that was in our original group here [in Madison] wanted to run a food distribution. And I said, “Okay, well, I’ll help you.”
So that’s how we started. Sherry was the one who started it, it was her idea. We started distributing food in May of 2016 together. Sherry’s a nice lady, she moved out of state after a few years and then she was just here a couple weeks ago checking up on us to see if we were still doing our job, haha. [Back then] She needed the help and I knew there was the need. I want to say that most of our families here have many generations living together, I think they have a greater need in most cases.
Yolo Food Bank: In your opinion, why are those multi-generational homes in more need?
Rachel: It is kids taking care of their parents or the grandparents helping with the grandkids. A lot of them are farm laborers or have low-paying jobs. So, if they can get support, I mean, the things we provide are not enough—we just supplement, right? We’re not providing all their food, so we’re supplementing. If you can help them have $20 that they can spend on their phone bill or their gas bill or their water bill—that’s 20 bucks that could go to something else that they need in their household instead of groceries. Like medicine. Who knows, we all have different needs.
Yolo Food Bank: And as the food distributions have continued, it seems like you’ve seen the need for support grow in Madison. Has that been the case?
Rachel: People appreciate it. When we first started, we had anywhere from 15 to 20 families at each distribution. Now we see it can range up to 35 at one distribution. The need for each household is probably a little bigger here than other places because of how many generations live in the homes. Nice that the word slowly gets out and the people learn about it when they need it.
Yolo Food Bank: In a small community like this, do you find good support in running this distribution?
Rachel: Most of my volunteers are related to me, and that’s why they help me, because I ask them to help me. It’s hard to get people to volunteer for things out here because they’re either working or they’re taking care of kids.
Juana lives across the street and she’s been a stay-at-home mom, and her kids are grown now. Whenever I need anything, she’s here—either to sign for the stuff in the morning if I can’t get here on time, and then we do our distribution in the afternoon. So she’s my right-hand person. And then my other relatives—I call them and say, “Hey, I need help.”
Yolo Food Bank: And my last question: if you could share with other people what kind of impact the groceries from Yolo Food Bank have made here in your community, what would you say?
Rachel: Well, I think that it does make an impact—it really helps families out. The majority of them—they come because they really need the help. I like when the kids come and we have lots of snacks for them, like cereal—the kids love cereal; I mean, the good kind. The Costco stuff, haha.
We don’t give it all at once. We open the boxes and say, “okay, today you get a few of these snack items. Help yourself, kids.” There’s a lot of times people come with their kids. Seeing kids get so excited because they get to pick their snacks, something they probably don’t get that often, that’s probably the best part of it for me. Letting people know that it is benefiting children is probably the biggest thing for me, especially in our community, because, like I said, there’s a lot of kids here. So yeah, I would say that definitely is probably the biggest impact we are making—it’s for the kids.
If you are interested in volunteering in your community you can find ways to volunteer with Yolo Food Bank. And if you want to support the work Rachel and all our volunteers are doing throughout Yolo County, consider donating to help make a positive impact in our community.
