Napans are rallying to fill the cupboards of the hungry this holiday season, but leaders who run the area’s food kitchens say we may have to dig a little deeper to take care of those who are struggling to put food on the table.

Turkey donations are down at the Salvation Army and Napa Valley Food Bank. Non-perishable foods and the financial donations that will help acquire fruits and vegetables on a timely basis are still wanting.

This is the case even after Friday’s strong effort from Napa High School students, who filled a truckload and more with donations for the Food Bank.

Shortly after 9 a.m. on Friday, students from all corners of the campus began to cross the Napa High quad with bags, boxes and barrels of canned and boxed goods. The effort was coordinated by Napa County Office of Education career center specialist Cathy Dickey and members of the Napa High Interact Club.

Interact Club co-presidents Kenna Fowler and Stephanie Hill were on hand to oversee the pick-up.

Hill said she hoped and expected the effort would top last year’s one-and-a-half truckloads.

Fowler said she got involved because “I like making a difference, and lending a hand to people who might not have a meal without us.”

Napa High sophomore Alana Freifeld acknowledged two motives for her decision to buy and donate 20 cans of goods.

“It’s a good cause, of course,” she said, “and my (chemistry) teacher is offering extra credit.”

Dickey began to work on the annual Napa High food drive 12 years ago. The drive, in which Napa High second period classes compete to see which is the most generous, is done in association with the Napa Sunrise Rotary Club, the Interact Club and Napa High School Leadership students.

This year, Dickey’s fellow Rotarian Ray Sercu, president of Vallerga’s Markets, offered a cash match for the goods collected at Napa High.

And yet, “Our need is first and foremost for Thanksgiving,” said Major Donna Bowman of the Salvation Army Napa Corps. “We are way behind on the donations that go toward the dinner next Thursday, turkeys, potatoes, canned goods.”

The Salvation Army serves between 400 and 500 meals at Thanksgiving, she said, and any donations not used then will be used at Christmas, when the group’s five staffers and handful of volunteers prepare food boxes for some 600 families.

Bowman said the Salvation Army accepts food deliveries and donations at its Napa Corps headquarters, 590 Franklin St. in Napa. Bowman asks that food only be dropped off during office hours, which are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. For Info, call 253-6128.

Over at the Napa Valley Food Bank, on Industrial Avenue off of California Boulevard, its also a light year for the traditional Thanksgiving main dish.

“We need turkeys,” said Shirley King, director of the food bank. “That’s a huge request. Customarily at this time of year we already have a lot, but we’re only starting to see them trickle in.”

King’s agency, under the auspices of Community Action Napa Valley, runs pantries at Lake Berryessa, in Angwin, Calistoga, St. Helena, Napa and American Canyon.

King said the food bank also can leverage financial donations for fresh produce through the Farm to Family program, a statewide food bank effort that brings non-marketable produce to the working poor. The Food Bank pays eight-to-16 cents a pound for a range of fruits and vegetables, from artichokes and watermelons, all depending on what the California cornucopia is providing at the time.

King is proud of the food bank’s increasing supply of fresh fruits and vegetables, something that is hard for pantries to provide.

King emphasized that the holidays are not the only times that matter to clients. The food bank supplies families year-round, and King said the ranks of families served by the Napa Valley Food Bank swells the most in January, when it reaches 800 families a month in Napa alone.

“So many of those we serve are working-class poor, whose opportunities for work are diminished because tourists aren’t around” in the winter, she said.

King’s agency accepts donations at 1755 Industrial Way, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., though it will be closed on Thanksgiving and the Friday immediately following. In addition to providing food to families on a more limited time schedule at the main office, the food bank has a second pantry for the season at the Living Vine Church of the Nazarene at 3305 Linda Vista Avenue this year. The church pantry will be open on the second and fourth Mondays of the month, 4-7 p.m.

King has been with the agency for eight years, and says the number of families served has not changed much over the years, but the demographics have.

“We’re serving a lot more seniors,” said King. ”Over the last three years, that has increased.”

She said while families come for an average of 20 months to get through hard times, the bank’s steadiest customers are elderly and disabled people.

Several other organizations are helping with the holiday food drive. Among them:

• The Springs of Napa, a retirement home at 3460 Villa Lane in north Napa, is holding a drive in the lobby for the Napa Valley Food Bank, collecting canned and boxed goods, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. through Sunday. For info, call 224-7855.

• Today, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Kiwanis club members and high school students from local Key clubs will collect turkeys, other items and cash at Raley’s Supermarket and Nob Hill Foods. Proceeds from the effort will benefit the food bank. The Kiwanis program was launched in 2003 by NBC 11 meteorologist John Farley. Farley, his wife and others started at one store that year, and the drive has spread throughout the Bay Area, bringing in more than 150,000 pounds of food and 11,000 turkeys.