Damian Saavedra pulled up in a refrigerated van Tuesday to deliver food salvaged from Sonoma Valley suppliers to support Sonoma Overnight Support’s food drive.

It’s one of seven locations he visits several times a week as part of a new pilot program, which in its first month (September) has recovered and redistributed 20,000 pounds of food – equal to nearly 70,000 meals – to Sonoma Valley residents facing food insecurity.

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

“The Food Recovery Pilot is one of the strategies within the broader Catalyst food security initiative, identified by the study’s findings and created using input from the Food Security Roundtable’s nonprofit partners, as well as input from county-level coalitions,” said Angela Ryan, Executive Director of the Sonoma Valley Catalyst Fund.

In early 2024, Catalyst decided to focus on food recovery and community refrigerators, which complemented each other and addressed the significant amounts of food leaving the Valley since the implementation of SB1383. This law, passed by the California State Legislature in 2022, requires businesses to reduce their food waste by donating unsold 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, state agencies, and local education agencies.

Catalyst hired Sonoma native Elise Gonzales, who was looking to combine her decade of international community development and culinary experience in a meaningful role.

“Elise and Catalyst were a perfect fit,” said Ryan. “As a food network weaver, Elise works with city and county food organizations to identify opportunities for collaboration in programming, funding and operations, all aimed at addressing the food gaps highlighted 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 regulatory requirements, Meals on Wheels has decided to step back from food recovery and focus on its core mission of to prepare and deliver meals to the elderly.

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

“They bring a proven model for engaging food donors, maximizing donations and ensuring effective redistribution of food to food insecure populations,” said Ryan.

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

The refrigerators were installed in five locations, which have not been disclosed because some of them are in private areas of residential complexes or in facilities that serve children and other vulnerable populations.

“Each community fridge is strategically located at a local nonprofit or housing partner site, where they assign a food manager who is paid a stipend and trained in environmental health protocols to increase community engagement and ensure they are food safety and health conditions met,” Ryan said. . “Fgigiders were placed in high-traffic areas where a clear need for accessible food resources was identified.”

With support from Catalyst and in coordination with local nonprofits, ExtraFood now has a staff member (Saavedra) and a refrigerated van to pick up and deliver food in Sonoma Valley. He 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 and Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa, among others.

“ExtraFood is constantly working to find more food donors and help existing food donors expand their donations,” said Ryan. “As we increase donations, we may add even more community refrigerators.”

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

Ryan said Catalyst is looking to expand the program to recover food from more sites and deliver to other partners and hopefully recover hundreds of thousands of pounds of additional food annually. She said the pilot program is collecting feedback from community fridge customers to adjust food offerings to fit their needs and wants.

As part of the pilot project, opportunities are also being explored to offer cooking classes to use commonly available produce or to cook shared meals in two residential locations.

“In partnership with the CalFresh Healthy Living program, we have identified two locations in Sonoma that would benefit significantly from coordinated efforts to address food insecurity, social isolation and nutrition education,” said Ryan. “Noticing that some residents struggled to fully utilize the products provided by partners – either due to surplus or lack of cultural relevance – we recognized an opportunity to implement community nutritional cooking classes within housing communities with low income, using the excess products offered by us. lead produce partner, Farm to Pantry.”

She said several organizations are collaborating to design and deliver these programs at the two locations.

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

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

Reach reporter Dan Johnson at [email protected].