Honoring Coachella Valley Resilience
The communities of Coachella Valley are resilient. If someone is in need, a community member will find a way to help. Throughout the pandemic, racial injustice and wildfires have ravaged the area. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of our community partners, coupled with the generosity of our donors, Growing the Table recently helped migrant workers, unhoused people, and under-resourced communities get access to more than 45,000 pounds of local, delicious produce. Everyone deserves access to healthy food. We would like to give special thanks to CV Harvest/Aziz Farms, FIND Food Bank, Galilee Center, and Líderes Campesinas.
Our Partners in Action: A Year in Review
Since the spring of 2020, Growing the Table has partnered with hundreds of California community organizations, farmers, and aggregators to provide culturally relevant produce— like collards, jalapeños, tomatoes, and bok choi — to families at no cost.
Thanks to caring people like you, together, we have sourced 820,000 lbs of produce and 46,600 freshly prepared meals from Black, Brown and Indigenous farmers who use organic and regenerative practices. Thank you for your partnership.
Our Partners in Action: Monterey Bay, Salinas and San Benito
Food insecurity has only worsened since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for farmworkers’, their families and those experiencing homelessness. Advocates for Growing the Table are working to strengthen connections between predominantly Latine organic farmers and local underserved communities. Growing the table is a program that has delivered 138,000 pounds of fresh produce to food-insecure families throughout the Monterey Bay Region since May.
Our Partners in Action: Santa Cruz
Food insecurity in Santa Cruz is underpinned by the fact that the region suffers from some of the highest rates of individuals experiencing homelessness in California. Meet Growing the Table partners, Homeless Garden Project, which offers a transitional employment program to provide healthy, organic produce to food-insecure neighbors in Santa Cruz. Together, we are combatting the hunger crisis in partnership with The Homeless Person’s Health Project, a service from the County of Santa Cruz.
Our Partners in Action: Los Angeles
A group of L.A. organizations has delivered more than 66,000 pounds of culturally relevant produce to under-resourced communities in an effort to represent L.A County’s scope and diversity.
Putting Black, Brown, and Regenerative Farmers First
Growing the Table aims to help small, racially and gender-diverse, and regenerative/organic farms and ranches participate in market alternatives that provide these farmers with a wholesale payment for their harvest of fresh fruits and vegetables. This food will be distributed to tens of thousands of food-insecure families all over the state.
In addition to providing meals to food-insecure families, averting potential food waste, and helping struggling farmers, Growing the Table’s work will hopefully help shift demand in the food supply chain toward a regenerative future and ensure greater racial and gender equity in the program and in the new economy.
Growing The Table Salons
We’ve been hosting panel discussions centered around issues and topics we care about most with subject matter experts across the country.
Meet Abraham Garcia, Co-Founder of Epic Farmshop
As a part of its COVID-related food relief program, Growing the Table partnered with Epic Farmshop to facilitate emergency food distribution. Thanks to generous donors, we have provided over $50,000 to support Epic’s network of 20 small farms in Monterey County whose demand channels had been reduced greatly by the pandemic.