Solving the Food Crisis in the Sonoma Valley

Damian Saavedra arrived in a refrigerated van Tuesday to deliver food sourced from Sonoma Valley suppliers to support Sonoma Overnight Support food production.

It’s one of seven locations he visits several times a week as part of a new pilot program that, in its first month (September), collected and redistributed 20,000 pounds of food, or nearly 70,000 meals, to Sonoma Valley residents experiencing food shortage.

The program is part of a multi-year Food Security Initiative pilot launched by Catalyst Fund Sonoma Valley in 2023 after a 77-page study. “Sonoma Valley Food Security Assessment” was released by the Community Planning Collaborative, indicating that approximately 8,000 Sonoma Valley residents face food insecurity.

“The Food Recovery Pilot is one strategy within the larger Catalyst Food Security Initiative, identified through research and created using input from nonprofit partners in the Food Security Roundtable, as well as input from countywide coalitions,” he said. Angela Ryan, Executive Director, Catalyst Fund Sonoma Valley.

In early 2024, Catalyst decided to focus on food recovery and community refrigerators, which complemented each other and addressed the significant amount of food leaving the Valley following the implementation of SB1383. This law, passed by the California State Legislature in 2022, requires certain businesses to reduce food waste by donating unsaleable but safe and edible food to local organizations that can distribute it to people experiencing food insecurity.

These businesses include supermarkets, grocery stores, food service providers, food distributors, food wholesalers, restaurants, hotels, healthcare facilities, large venues, large events, government agencies and local educational institutions.

Catalyst hired Sonoma native Elisa Gonzalez, who wanted to combine her decades of international community development and culinary experience into a meaningful position.

“Elisa and Catalyst came together at the perfect time,” Ryan said. “As a food network developer, Elisa partners with food organizations throughout the city and county to identify opportunities for collaboration in program development, funding and operations, all of which are aimed at closing the food gaps identified in the recent assessment and strengthening the local food support network.” .

Food recovery efforts in the Sonoma Valley were previously led by Meals on Wheels and the Empire Food Bank, but due to new regulations, Meals on Wheels has decided to move away from food recovery and focus on its core mission of preparing and delivering meals to seniors.

So Catalyst established a working relationship with ExtraFood, a Bay Area nonprofit that has been foraging food in Marin, San Francisco, and surrounding areas for the past decade.

“They offer a proven model for engaging food donors, maximizing donations and ensuring effective food redistribution to food-insecure communities,” Ryan said.

After working with five local nonprofits and low-income housing projects to develop ways to ensure food reaches community members where and when they need it most, Catalyst decided to implement “community refrigerators”—commercial refrigerators with a glass front panel – which she purchased. or were donated by Zero Waste Sonoma.

The refrigerators were installed in five locations, which were not disclosed because some were in private areas of apartment complexes or in facilities serving children and other vulnerable populations.

“Each community refrigerator is strategically located on the premises of a local nonprofit or housing partner where they assign a nutrition manager who is paid a stipend and trained in environmental health protocols to increase community engagement and ensure food safety and sanitation,” said Ryan. . “Refrigerators were placed in high-traffic areas where there was a clear need for accessible food resources.”

With support from Catalyst and in coordination with local nonprofits, ExtraFood now has a staff member (Saavedra) and a refrigerated van to collect and deliver food in the Sonoma Valley. It picks up donated food five days a week from Safeway, Lucky, Nugget Market, Whole Foods Market, Glen Ellen Village Market, Sonoma Valley Unified School District, Sonoma Valley Hospital, Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa and others.

“ExtraFood is constantly working to find more food donors as well as help existing food donors expand their donations,” Ryan said. “While we increase donations, we can also add more community refrigerators.”

Saavedra delivers food to five locations, as well as Sonoma Overnight Support’s Unity Kitchen and Meals on Wheels.

Ryan said Catalyst is looking to expand the program to bring food from more sites and deliver it to additional partners and hopefully generate hundreds of thousands of pounds of additional food each year. She said the pilot program is collecting feedback from community refrigerator customers to tailor food offerings to meet their needs and wants.

The pilot project is also exploring the possibility of providing cooking classes on using commonly available ingredients or preparing shared meals in two residential buildings.

“In partnership with the CalFresh healthy living program, we have identified two sites in Sonoma that would greatly benefit from a coordinated effort to address food insecurity, social isolation and nutrition education,” Ryan said. “Noting that some residents struggle to fully utilize produce provided by partners—either due to excess or lack of cultural relevance—we saw an opportunity to bring community cooking classes to low-income residential communities using surplus produce , provided by our main production partner, Farm to Pantry.”

She said several organizations are collaborating to develop and implement these programs at the two sites.

The long-term goal of Catalyst’s Food Security Initiative is to create a sustainable local food security system that draws on the abundance of local food, the creativity and expertise of Sonoma Valley nonprofits, and the connections and resources of government agencies. and regional partners outside the Valley.

Catalyst was created in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic to quickly respond to the immediate needs of the Sonoma Valley community. It mobilizes philanthropic support and innovative approaches to better address urgent, emerging and chronic problems that no single Sonoma Valley donor or organization can solve alone.

Contact reporter Dan Johnson at [email protected].