Bay Area Coast Guard families without paychecks get community help

ALAMEDA, Calif. (KGO) -- The lack of a paycheck is hitting home for hundreds of Coast Guard families in the East Bay and other furloughed federal workers as local businesses kick into gear to help them out. Payday for the Coast Guard is Tuesday and they know they are not getting paychecks. Local food pantries are standing by ready to serve.

The director of the Alameda County Community Food Bank said, "We've actually heard from furloughed workers counterintuitively as we've had furloughed workers volunteering and helping us."

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They are encouraging those workers who aren't getting paychecks to contact them for aid.

Coast guard mom Danielle Manor said, "It's just a really uneasy feeling not knowing are my kids going to have food on the table, am I going to have my bills paid, are people going to understand why we can't pay for things."

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Manor's husband has been in the Coast Guard for 12 years and they have three sons including four-year-old twins. She is mobilizing with the East Bay spouses club as they frantically collect and sort donated goods.

The president of the club in Alameda, Anja Cangemi, said she's in shock. That she ever thought it would come down to this and the reality hit her today.

Cangemi added many military families live paycheck to paycheck and this new stress is overwhelming with Coast Guard spouses often gone for months at a time. So the spouses club is running shuttles from four Alameda businesses including a café called the Local, the Friends of Alameda animal shelter, Alameda Island brewing company and Rock Wall Wine Company where there are collection bins.

By Sunday, all the donated goods, including diapers and pet food and laundry supplies, will be lined up so that 200 families can go to the Coast Guard YMCA to select what they need.

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Rock wall wine company founder Shauna Rosenblum said, "The person who is our president saying he can relate to this-- he can't relate to this. He can't relate to not having a paycheck to buy your kids food. So we're all banding together to make sure the people who serve our community are being served."

A similar coast guard Drive is underway in the North Bay.