Progress 04/15/24 to 04/14/25

Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience is faith-based groups; governmental and university program representatives; and local direct market farmers. Project outreach audience included a diverse group including traditionally African American churches; Buddhist temples serving SE Asian Americans; and Latinos/Latinas. The project facilitated understanding by food pantry personnel serving Muslims and Jews committed to Halal and Kosher religious dietary restrictions and facing food insecurity during a disaster. The Project Team built on established relationships with UC Cooperative Extension, and local VOAD (Voluntary Organizations Activeduring Disaster). Outreach focused on Alameda, Contra Costa, Sonoma, Marin, Solano, SanMateo, Santa Clara and San Francisco counties in Northern California. An important group ofproject beneficiaries are practitioners (clergy and lay leaders) who are committed to dramaticallyincrease the number of commercial kitchens and food storage facilities made available formeeting food security needs during a disaster. During the 1st quarter of 2025 we expanded outreach to support extreme weather disaster response in communities impacted by the fires in Southern California. Changes/Problems:The project team seeks to have a more balanced geographical representation on the list. The Project Team originally proposed to focus outreach on 8 Northern California counties: Alameda, Contra Costa, Sonoma, Marin, Solano, San Mateo, Santa Clara and San Francisco. Responses to date are not balanced among the eight. The list reflects stronger representation in Sonoma and Marin counties, and weaker representation in San Mateo, and Santa Clara counties for example. This is due to the main outreach event supported through the project-the May conference- being held in Sonoma County. We plan to hold the coming workshop in a county with less representation. A challenge that arose was how best to use survey data to share with secular emergency response agencies when needed, while the full project work was still being developed. For example, while we had only 50% of our goal met for the list and still tuning the formatting for external distribution, a flooding event happened in our target geography. In response we reached out to targeted county and secular disaster response leaders offering the data and contacts we had. Another opportunity to increase impact came with the Southern California fires early in 2025, while we hadn't focused our survey or list development in that region we were able to use the survey developed through the project to assist and ended up doing outreach to over 600 faith-based organizations in the Southern California area. Other challenges included a staff change with the Communications/Reporting team. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Two key opportunities for training and professional development were organized and offered through the project. First Interfaith Sustainable Food Collaborative staff organized a regional conference attended by representatives of over 35 faith-based groups. Secondly, a small workshop presentation was done in January, 2025 targeting San Francisco congregations. In addition, the Project Team engaged in professional development including participating in 'war room' disaster response training events in Marin and San Mateo County, and joining a University Cooperative Extension program networking events in Mendocino County working with representatives of the State Office of Emergency Services and numerous other secular leaders. The team planned and organized a May 2024 conference focusing on research and extension of best practices for how the faith community can use its assets in partnership with secular agencies. The conference agenda included tours of local sites, speakers from a variety of religious and secular organizations, and attendees were able to make connections and broaden their understanding and develop capacity to assist with food access during extreme weather disasters. Over 70 individuals registered representing more than 35 faith-based organizations from 9 California counties. With the conference theme focused on food access during fires, floods and other extreme weather disasters, Interfaith Sustainable Food Collaborative brought together local, regional and national experts to advance knowledge of how to ensure food security and create networks to strengthen community resiliency and resources during times of disaster. Attendees toured local congregations that previously utilized their facilities during recent disasters. Attendees learned more from the members of the congregations and heard about how they used physical assets and human resources including volunteers to better aid their community. Physical assets included commercial kitchen use, cold storage, dining halls or even overnight shelters. Tour sites included St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Sebastopol; Iglesia Cristiana Shalom Elohim, Rohnert Park; and St. Seraphim of Sarov Orthodox Cathedral, and Congregation Shomrei Torah in Santa Rosa. Speakers at the conference covered a number of topics, including but not limited to: food waste reduction; resources to facilitate food access in disasters. Attendees heard from members of local congregations as well as representatives from the United States Department of Agriculture, Zero Waste Sonoma, the Agricultural Institute of Marin, the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, and University of California Cooperative Extension. In addition to learning from expert speakers, attendees were also given time to network and broaden their local community resources to a number of congregations and organizations. They took part in workshops with local and national speakers to dive deeper into the different ways in which different congregations/communities can or have addressed food access in times of disaster as well as the resources that can be utilized. In a post-event evaluation, an attendee mentions being inspired, especially by "how open everyone is to helping." Responses from the evaluation included: 85.71% reporting they agreed or strongly agreed with the statement they "Received resources to advance current disaster food access projects". A full 93.33% reported they agreed or strongly agreed that they "Learned about new project ideas" through the conference. No respondents strongly disagreed with either of the questions. The conference closed with Timothy Van Meter, of the Methodist Theological Seminary of Ohio, and President Trever Burgon, of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sharing their insight on innovative programs that have gone beyond the scope of traditional religious programming to aid neighbors and grow community food security during extreme weather disasters. The project team did a one-hour presentation to representatives of faith-based congregations in San Francisco and San Mateo counties on January 9th, 2025. This highlighted resources for assisting with CalFresh/SNAP and Disaster SNAP during extreme weather disasters, as well as participation in the survey to share assets with secular authorities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The Project Team promoted project services along with a survey to over 2,500 faith-based organizations. The team presented at 14 outreach events, reaching more than 1,147 members of the target audience. This included 12 in-person outreach events. The purpose was to promote the survey, and other resources made available through the project. The summary of the conference was promoted through an electronic newsletter to Interfaith Food's network of over 3,500 faith-based organizations throughout California. The conference binder was promoted to this extended network. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?During the extended period we plan to do one or more workshops focused on food access disaster response for faith-based organizations. Outreach for the workshop and post-workshop offering of technical assistance will focus on identifying additional faith-groups for the resource list from deliverable 2.1 and groups seeking technical assistance per Goal 2, Deliverable 2.5.

Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals? To date the project has been successful in advancing key deliverables on both proposed Goals 1 and 2. Per quarterly reporting to AFRI program staff, the Project Team has focused on deliverables including: a conference to inform faith-groups about best practices for disaster response, and faciliating relationship-building with secular disaster response authorities. This reflects, in part, the team developing understanding that the highest impact for the project would come from ensuring up-to-date information on faith-based groups assets and contacts was available to secular authorities coordinating disaster response on a local level. In terms of progress related to Goal 2, Deliverable 2.1 we have succeeded in identifying 77 faith-based sites with commercial kitchen and/or cold storage facilities that are committed to make them available during an extreme weather disaster, and the majority of these have agreed to have contact information for representatives and site specific capacity data shared with secular authorities. After coordinating with other agencies to no duplicate local survey efforts, the team developed and distributed a survey to over 1,900 faith-based organizations in the project area in Summer, 2024. This was followed with targeted phone calls and in-person outreach. To date electronic outreach and workshop promotion to over 2500 separate faith-based organizations on project programs and resources, and electronic survey for list development. The team presented at 14 outreach events, reaching more than 1,147 members of the target audience. This included 12 in-person outreach events. The purpose was to promote the survey, and other resources made available through the project. We have developed a semi-automated system to synthesize data and make it available for sharing with secular authorities through the Interfaithfood web-site. This is facilitated by new features integrating the web-site with an on-line survey tool, and our CRM (Client Resource Management system). Success of the project in terms of outcomes for the broader community are demonstrated by the Project Team promoting initial list of faith community contacts and assets to 9 county Emergency Departments after November 2024 flooding hitting the Greater San Francisco Bay area. The team interviewed regional Latter Day-Saints lead staff on best practices for development of internal institutional policies for maintaining food storage, & preparation equip. to facilitate utilization in response to disaster.

Publications