Goals & Needs

Gleaning is rescuing food that would otherwise go wasted to share with families facing food insecurity. Food waste is responsible for 10% of greenhouse gas emissions. Our GrizzlyCorps Fellow will lead gleans with volunteers to harvest food and distribute it to our community partners. They will assist in planting our community gardens and other food justice work. Last year the emissions saved by our gleaning of over 350,000 pounds of produce was equivalent to taking 74 cars off the road for a year (and 1.4 million servings of fruits and vegetables at the same time). A fourth of the total was led by one Americorp position, which means that this one Americorps-led volunteer team was able to rescue 87,500 pounds of good food, or 350,000 servings, while saving the emissions of 18 cars over a year!

Our GrizzlyCorps fellow is also helping us give land access to families to gain food sovereignty over the food they eat through community garden efforts. Our GrizzlyCorps Fellow will combat climate change and increase Farm to Pantry's impact (number of gleans we can do in a week and pounds gleaned). At least 4 days a week, they will be leading volunteers in harvesting for the first half of the day and then assisting in delivery and data tracking for the second half of the day.

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Capacity Building Projects

• Glean Lead: Build number of gleans/week and increase the pounds of produce rescued. We aim to get to 20/gleans per week. Our fellow will track pounds gleaned at each site and where the food lands. (100 partners - Corazon, Burbank Housing, Redwood Empire Food Bank, La Familia Sana, Fish, Bayer Farm, etc.)
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• Grow-a-Row: Rather than just adding a row, our GrizzlyCorps fellow will build capacity through community garden spaces giving land access to all. We would seek to add 10 acres into food production with this position.
   

• The pandemic combined with the wildfires, threw our community into a desperate economic swivet. Farm to Pantry assures good food access for all people. Food justice is about community resilience.
   

Organizational & Community Highlights

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Sonoma County has suffered immense impacts of climate change with repeated wildfires. It is a rural area producing much of Northern California's incredible food & wine. The community is incredibly connected after the wildfires, with people really caring to help each other. Food wise, there is no greater place, everything grows here. Farm to Pantry gets to harvest on over 400 properties, farm with over 300 volunteers, and share with over 100 community partners. We are a tiny team of 2 full- time people and 3 part-time people with one GrizzlyCorps member and one Americorps member. Our GrizzlyCorps fellow gets to make a huge impact in this team and their contribution is heard and considered.There is a lot of independent work, so our GC fellow must have initiative and good work ethic. 

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