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At the end of each workday, Tom Myers knows that someone in his community received crucial assistance, whether it was financial help to avoid an eviction or access to food and other essentials.
Myers is the executive director of the Community Services Agency, which has been serving the local area for nearly 70 years. The goal of the organization has always been to act as a “safety net” for community members, ensuring that people’s basic needs are met, Myers told the Voice.
The nonprofit focuses on two areas of assistance – making sure that people have food on their table and a roof over their heads. It achieves this through several different offerings, including case management for people experiencing homelessness, emergency financial help for rent and utilities, meals for local seniors, as well as groceries from its extensive food pantry in Mountain View.
This spring, CSA moved back into its home at 204 Stierlin Road after a year of renovations on the building. The upgraded space has a larger food center and an overall more efficient layout, Myers said. One aspect of the redesign that he appreciates the most is the mural on the outside that depicts roots and vegetables on a bright green background, he said.
“I felt like what we really needed to do was to make sure that people knew this was not just an institution, but a warm and welcoming space for them,” Myers said. “I’m really pleased that we did that.”
The organization’s Food and Nutrition Center distributed nearly 670,000 pounds of donated food, 75% of which was fresh fruits and vegetables, to 3,312 people, according to its 2024-25 annual report. In this same year, CSA also gave rental and utilities assistance to 169 households, and case managers for people experiencing homelessness helped 144 individuals secure housing.
In addition to paid employees, CSA also depends on the help of volunteers to provide support to the community. The organization has more than 360 volunteers who contributed nearly 13,000 hours of service last year.
Recently, CSA has been dealing with funding cuts and policy changes from the federal government. Myers suspects that there will be more related challenges in the near future, which means the organization will have to find money elsewhere to continue providing its services to the community.
“We really don’t know how we will see through to the end of it because we have a client base that is scared,” Myers said. “We need to make sure that we are … balancing the funding stuff by going out and raising more money for our programs.”
With immigration enforcement on the rise over the last year, Myers recognizes that some of CSA’s clients might be worried about seeking out help. He highlighted that the nonprofit is and always has been an organization that aims to serve “everybody in need.”
“It does not matter what their situation is,” Myers said. “We do not know how to enforce immigration law. What we know how to do is feed people and make sure that they are not homeless. That’s the work that we do.”
CSA is a recipient of the Mountain View Voice holiday fund. Each year, donations to the Holiday Fund are divided equally among a group of local nonprofits that serve people in need. The Voice and Embarcadero Media Foundation, the nonprofit that now publishes the Voice, absorb all administrative costs to run the fund, and all donations are tax-deductible.
For more information about the Holiday Fund, go to mv-voice.com/holiday-fund. To give a donation online, go to embarcaderomediafoundation.org/holiday-fund/mountain-view. Checks can be made payable to Mountain View Voice Holiday Fund and sent to 2345 Yale St., FL 1, Palo Alto, CA 94306. The Holiday Fund campaign will run through mid-January, with grants awarded in the spring.
