California Emergency Foodlink (CEFL)
Emily Katz, Vice President for Resource Development, Ext. 105
John Healey, Executive Director
Patti Wirz, Executive Vice President/Chief Financial Officer
PO Box 292700
8350 Fruitridge Road
Sacramento, Calif. 95829
Web: www.interx.com/cefl/
E-Mail: HN0066@connectinc.com

This national model organization got its start only four years ago as a means to channel government commodities from the Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) to rural emergency-feeding agencies throughout California. It didn't take it long for Foodlink’s programs and services to evolve along paths of remarkable creativity. Recently, Foodlink was recognize with a grant form the Ford Foundation and the JFK School of Government Innovations Awards program.

Foodlink operates one of the most innovative anti-poverty programs I've encountered in all 50 states. A national model, it has been recognized by the US Department of Agriculture and many other hunger relief organizations.

Created through a public/private partnership with the CA Department of Social Services, Foodlink was established as a non-profit organization in 1992. Foodlink’s long-range mission was to replace TEFAP, a federal commodities distribution program that was facing possible extinction. TEFAP once provided one billion pounds of food to the nation’s hungry each year but now provides less than 15 million pounds per year. Further complicating this situation was the fact that good produce was going to waste in California because it was substandard or difficult for farmers to process for profitable sale.

To deal with these troubling issues, Foodlink convinced the agriculture and food industries to develop major, on-going food donation programs to get much-needed fresh and packaged food into the hands of the 1.5 million hungry Californians Foodlink serves each month. This program, called "Donate -- Don't Dump,” salvages food that was previously turned under in the field, sent to landfills or sold as feed- despite the fact that it was perfectly edible and fit for human consumption.

“Donate -- Don't Dump” is just one program that exemplifies Foodlink’s devotion to recycling and maximizing the existing resources. In addition to coordinating “Donate -- Don't Dump,” and distributing TEFAP commodities, Foodlink also operates a local food bank (Interfaith Foodlink), a prepared-food rescue operation (Sacramento Area Community Kitchen - SACK), a Senior Brown Bag program, regional distribution of SHARE, grocery deliveries for elderly and AIDS/HIV patients, food drives, and disaster response programs. Through all of these programs, Foodlink distributes more than 35 million pounds of food annually, serving all 58 counties in the state, including 50 food banks, and 1,500 food closets.

To complement its anti-hunger efforts Foodlink expanded its core services in 1994, when it obtained over 540,000 square feet of surplus military property on the site of the former Sacramento Army Depot. Foodlink leveraged this space into a job training facility by entering into partnerships with major businesses and corporations. They needed warehousing, trucking and light equipment repair services, and Foodlink wanted to put the homeless, hungry, chronically unemployed and those on welfare to work. Businesses get their needs met at competitive prices; job trainees receive job skills, a living wage, health benefits and assistance in making the school-to-work or welfare-to-work transition. The revenue Foodlink generates from these business partnerships goes to support its free distribution of food throughout the state. From zero self-generated income four years ago, Food-link is now generating almost 45 percent of its $3.8 million annual budget through these partnerships.

Foodlink’s remarkable creativity really hits home when you see its programs in action. For example, the day I visited, a crew of a dozen men and women wearing trim blue uniforms were ripping labels from thousands of cans of cat food that a major manufacturer had unable to sell overseas. They were repackaging this product with generic labeling for domestic sale. Another group of workers was busy with cloths and solvent removing an erroneous code from the bottom of orange juice cans. In another of the dozens of cavernous warehouse “bays,” workers were processing, sorting and repackaging damaged prepared-food items recovered by a commercial firm that buys such damaged goods for resale in warehouse stores. A portion of these foodstuffs are also donated to Foodlink for distribution to feeding agencies.

A total of about 80 of Foodlink's staff of 150 hold these job training positions. Some move into line management posts in the warehouses, and an estimated 25 percent go on to paying jobs in the private sector.

Foodlink is also moving into higher-skilled job training programs. For instance, one group of 34 trainees is cleaning, inspecting and repackaging computer parts for Zytec Corporation and Hewlett Packard. Another group of 22 trainees is learning how to repair and refurbish computers that will be donated to California Schools.

This training is preparing these individuals for highly skilled, highly paid, in-demand occupations in the high technology field. Another five job trainees are employed by Capital Corrugated, a private firm that manufactures specialized corrugated packaging. These trainees are learning to operate complicated industrial box-making machinery that will qualify them for $15-an-hour jobs in the economy after a two-year apprenticeship.

It all fits together in a remarkable way: recycling and maximizing existing resources to provide food to 1.5 million hungry Californians each month; and providing training for the homeless, hungry, chronically unemployed individuals who desperately need jobs but lack the required skills. Foodlink’s guiding mission is to implement sensible solutions to the hunger problem that effectively address its root causes. Judging by the efficiency and success of its comprehensive programs and services, Foodlink is well on its way to achieving this mission.

California Emergency Foodlink is quadrupling the size of its job training program as a direct result of welfare reform.

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

Browse his book, Reinvesting In America, at Amazon.com.

Send him E-mail.

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