Sonoma County

Leveraging a cash-match from the County of Sonoma, this implementation project will work with the Sonoma County COAD, and the County of Sonoma Department of Emergency Management, Office of Equity, the Care and Shelter Team, and Petaluma Bounty to develop five community-based food networks (CBFNs) to serve as emergency food navigators and networkers. These networks will expand food security and increase revenue opportunities for local producers. UCCE Sonoma & Petaluma Bounty (“Project Team”) are leading the Sonoma County implementation project for this grant. The Project Team will also facilitate development of a County-wide emergency feeding plan.

The project objectives are to 1) increase sub-regional food system resilience around the County, 2) support those most affected by food insecurity and climate disasters, and 3) strengthen economic and community resilience by prioritizing local producers and service providers in short- and long-term disaster recovery efforts.  Investing in local emergency food system resilience will also result in reduced food waste to local landfills (thus reducing greenhouse gasses), reduced food miles for distribution networks, and other climate-smart metrics that will be identified throughout the project.  

The Project Team is soliciting applications for lead agencies to lead each of the five regional CBFNs for this project.  Being a CBFN Coordinator provides a vehicle for funding support for regional food security work, both for the lead coordinating agency and network members, and serves to better identify ongoing support needs for food producers and providers. We hope that these networks will enable us to build the capacity of regional emergency feeding services.

The following is the schedule for the Request for Applications (RFA) is to select Coordinators for five ‘Community-Based Food Networks’ (CBFNs) in Sonoma County (optimally distributed geographically around the County) to support community resilience.

For more information, please reach out to the Sonoma Project Manager, Mimi Enright at menright@ucanr.edu.