Feeding Oakland and Supporting Local Restaurants & Farms

Model and Strategy

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many farmers have watched their produce rot on the vine as restaurant closures have broken the supply chain. Through “Farmers for Families,” a project in partnership with Chef Jose Andres’ World Central Kitchen, Eat. Learn. Play. is enabling local farmers to play a role in hunger relief work, sending nutritious food to Oakland families and revenue to local farms. Beginning November 2020, Eat. Learn. Play. will grow this farm-aid initiative, delivering fresh produce to 3,500 families at 24 Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) sites weekly on Mondays and Thursdays. Each box will contain 15-lbs of fresh fruit and vegetables from local farms. Farmers for Families is one part of our food insecurity portfolio, and was modeled after Restaurants for the People, our flagship program with World Central Kitchen. Through this program we pay 130 Oakland restaurants to supply 80,000 high-quality meals each week in Oakland. By engaging farms similarly, we can ensure kids have the fresh food required for a healthy childhood, while also helping farms employ local workers.

Impact

Provide fresh, nutritious food to 3,500 low-income Oakland families, delivering 15-lb produce boxes weekly at 24 OUSD sites. While picking up their vegetable box, an OUSD parent remarked, “I wouldn't be able to buy these fruits and vegetables. I have to spend my money on other food, rent. This makes it possible for us to have fresh food.”

Support local farms, sourcing the majority of the produce from four farms owned by farmers of color. Empowering food workers, particularly people of color, in the local economy to be part of hunger relief work helps the community to rebuild toward a more racially equitable future. It also keeps revenue for hunger relief circulating within the community, particularly among low-income workers who are already the most vulnerable during the pandemic.

Save prime produce from going to waste at local farms. Restaurant closures due to the pandemic have created wide-scale disturbances in the supply chain leaving tons of fruits and vegetables rotting on the vine on California farms, and farm workers unemployed.

Eat. Learn. Play.