Bradley Grose, founder of Santa Clarita Grocery, a Santa Clarita food pantry offering fresh groceries to the community, explains the ways they’re rising to meet challenges in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

Throughout the financial uncertainty surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, Santa Clarita Grocery has developed methods to keep serving the local community while also maintaining social distance to help keep everyone healthy and safe.

Grose explained that these procedures were developed to tackle two issues — an increase in the number of families seeking fresh groceries and concerns about social distancing.

Related: Santa Clarita Grocery Offers Drive Thru Groceries And Special Senior Hours

As early as May, Grose reported that they were seeing four times as many people seeking grocery assistance. However, in order to follow best practices, Grose needed to limit the number of people inside Santa Clarita Grocery’s warehouse at any given time.

In order to deal with both of these issues, the Santa Clarita Grocery staff has moved towards a “drive-thru groceries” method of delivering fresh groceries to the public.

“Each week, we’ve perfected the new system,” said Grose. “Our volunteers have shifted, to now they are their shoppers, shopping for our guests that are waiting in their cars.”

Santa Clarita Grocery now offers fresh groceries three times a week via their drive-thru groceries pickup service. People are free to drive up between 5:30 and 7 p.m. on Monday and Wednesday or 9:30 to 11 a.m. on Saturday.

There are special “Senior Hours” for senior citizens or their appointed representatives, to help keep them from having to sit in lines of traffic for too long. These hours are from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on Wednesdays.

In addition to improving safety for their guests, Grose said that he’s prioritized the health of the most vulnerable among the volunteer staff.

“When COVID hit, we took the executive decision to let all of our volunteers take a hiatus who were over 55 (years of age) because we were wanting to not put them at risk,” said Grose.

Thankfully, many younger volunteers have joined the Santa Clarita food pantry, and are ready to assist those who may need help accessing fresh groceries..

“It’s just been beautiful to watch how it happens,” said Grose. “It’s one of the greatest joys of our volunteer team that we get to serve the people in our community that are in need.”

Those looking to get in touch with the Santa Clarita food pantry can contact them through the Santa Clarita Grocery website or by calling (661) 425-7575.

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