San Diego Foundation Empowers BIPOC Farmers in the San Diego Community by Awarding the San Diego Food Bank a $200,000 Grant!

The Jacobs and Cushman San Diego Food Bank has been locally run and operated by those living in the San Diego community since it was founded in 1977. We pride ourselves in being able to help our local community gain access to a wide variety of nutritious food for those facing food insecurity. We are able to work with more than 540 nonprofit partner organizations to provide these resources to families in our communities through the generosity of the donations and grants we receive.

The San Diego Foundation, an organization that inspires enduring philanthropy and enables community solutions to improve the quality of life in our region, awarded the San Diego Food Bank a $200,000 grant as part of the Community Food Grant Program. This grant has allowed us the opportunity to connect with other game changers in the San Diego community like Foodshed and uplift our BIPOC farmers and community members. Foodshed is an organization powered by grassroots efforts made by those in the City Heights community. It first came to fruition in March 2020 when farm founders saw the disconnection between low-income communities and quality food. The lack of access to knowledge surrounding the connection between the food we eat and how that affects our health further fueled this clear need for change.

‍Foodshed has become a place where people from historically underserved communities are able to receive nutritious food in an affordable way through their sliding scale program, all while supporting local farmers. They have also been able to enlist help from those in the community - “Promotoras”. Promotoras are women from the neighborhood of City Heights who are employed by Foodshed. They go to folks' homes and provide the neighborhood of City Heights with information surrounding the resources that Foodshed provides. Foodshed prides itself in being able to not only invest in the health of the community but also help the planet through their use of Carbon farming and regenerative agriculture practices.In light of the grant we received from the San Diego Foundation, the Food Bank has been able to support Foodshed and their network of farmers, by procuring the nutritious vegetables and the animal products they produce and distributing it to local families experiencing food insecurity. We now have farm-fresh food in our warehouse, ready for our nonprofit partners to come pick up and get it into the hands of those who need it most.

The Food Bank thanks the San Diego Foundation and their commitment to empowering our BIPOC communities and to Foodshed for their unwavering fight for living farm worker wages, quality food, and education. It takes a community to feed a community and we are able to make transformational change working in tandem.If you would like to continue supporting local change, consider buying a box of farm fresh produce from Foodshed or donate to the San Diego Food Bank today!