Pets Can you take Ginnie home?
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enterprise THE DAVIS
FRIDAY, APRIL 3, 2020
Need for food increases Volunteers rise to the challenge BY LAUREN KEENE Enterprise staff writer Food-assistance programs experience a steady demand even under everyday circumstances. Add to that a public-health crisis that boosts that need, yet also restricts contact between employees, volunteers and the clients they serve. That’s what’s happening in Yolo County, where local emergency food providers are maintaining their services — and in some cases expanding them — while abiding by strict social-distancing protocols brought on by the coronavirus pandemic. “We’re in emergency response mode,” said Joy Cohan, director of philanthropic engagement for Yolo Food Bank, which in a partnership with the Yolo County Office of Emergency Services recently launched several new programs to feed the county’s most vulnerable populations. Countywide, assistance programs have shifted their distribution methods but not their missions, relying on strong networks of volCOURTESY PHOTO unteers along with community generosity that so far have kept their Yolo Food Bank volunteer Aidan Cohan, 16, makes a shelves well stocked. “low-contact” food delivery to a Davis home on March 18 as Yolo “We are very grateful to the volCounty enacted its shelter-in-place order. unteers who have stepped in to take Term Emergency Aid Committee on this work and help us keep (STEAC), which currently has a wait list going through this crisis,” said Liane Moody, executive director of the Short for its services but hopes to add more
service days and clients in the coming weeks. Other local organizations, including Davis Community Meals and Housing and the Woodland Food Closet, also still run fullservice operations but in modified forms.
Yolo Food Bank The food bank and Yolo County OES began mobilizing for the COVID-19 crisis the week of March 9, foreseeing that shelter-in-place guidelines enacted in other communities would soon become a reality in Yolo County, according to Cohan. Since then, YFB began a free weekly “low-contact” homedelivery service that last week got food to roughly 2,000 county residents age 65 and older or healthcompromised, including 160 Davis households comprising about 350 clients. “That was a 100-percent increase over the week prior, and we expect it to increase again this week,” Cohan said. To maintain social distancing, food boxes are dropped off in a designated location in each city — for Davis, it’s the Davis High School parking lot — and picked up on a staggered schedule by local volunteers who then deliver them to individual clients. Recipients get a phone call from their assigned volunteer alerting them their delivery is on the way.
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Davis restaurants confronting grim reality Surge in take-out not enough for long-term survival BY CALEB HAMPTON Enterprise staff writer In January, shortly after the novel coronavirus appeared in China, Davis’s oldest Chinese restaurant, Ding How, started losing business. “That’s when things started to slow down,” said manager Chi Hoang, whose family has owned the restaurant for nearly three decades. “When the virus arrived in America, it got even worse.”
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Opened in 1979, Ding How specializes in Mandarin cuisine. It offers a separate vegetarian menu and, for many in Davis, a sense of nostalgia. “People who went to UC Davis a long time ago like to come here for their reunions,” Hoang said. “They meet here and talk about the old days.” Now, two weeks into a lockdown meant to slow the spread of the coronavirus, Ding How and other local restaurants are at a crossroads. California residents have been ordered to stay at home and restaurants are limited to serving takeout and delivery.
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INDEX
Arts . . . . . . . . . .B1 Forum . . . . . . . .B4 Senior Living . .B6 Classifieds . . . . A4 Obituaries . . . . A6 Sports . . . . . . .B2 Comics . . . . . . .B5 Pets . . . . . . . . . A3 The Wary I . . . . A2
Council OKs land lease to solar firm BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY Enterprise staff writer More than 230 acres of city-owned land near the wastewater treatment plant could become home to a commercial solar farm and solar-energy testing facility under a plan approved by the City Council last week, but not everyone is happy about the process that led to the council’s approval. The solar company BrightNight approached the city earlier this year about leasing 235 acres of land just east of the Yolo County Landfill on County Road 28H. That land used to provide space for ponds to clean and purify the city’s wastewater but those ponds are no longer needed thanks to upgrades to the wastewater treatment facility. During a closed session in February, the council authorized the city manager to move ahead with a preliminary agreement with BrightNight that could ultimately result in $80,000 in annual revenue for the city. Under the terms of the agreement the council approved last Tuesday, the city would receive about $5,000 per year during the next five years while BrightNight secures entitlements for the solar facility and once
SEE SOLAR, PAGE A5
Yolo County extends shelter order to May 1 BY ANNE TERNUS-BELLAMY Enterprise staff writer
CALEB HAMPTON/ENTERPRISE PHOTO
Chi Hoang, manager of Ding How, wonders how long the longtime Chinese restaurant can survive during the coronavirus lockdown.
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Yolo County has joined other counties in Northern California in extending its countywide shelter-in-place order to May 1. The extension issued Wednesday is aimed at slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, an effort one county health official said Tuesday may be having the intended effect. Since ordering the shelter-in-place two weeks ago, the county has not seen a surge of cases in its hospitals, though officials remain very cautious, given confirmed cases in the county
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