News

• Centro del Pueblo
• Brenda Perez with Adan Cervantes Perez at a community garden.

EUREKA, CA (Mar. 23, 2021) – On Saturday, March 27 at 1:30 p.m. Centro del Pueblo and Cooperation Humboldt will consecrate the Arcata Community Health and Wellness Garden on the corner of 11th and F Streets as a Sanctuary for all people. There will be music, food for people experiencing food insecurity, a land acknowledgement, and the ceremonial planting of seeds important to the Mixtec people. Masks and physical distancing are required.

Cooperation Humboldt and Centro del Pueblo recently began stewardship of the Community Garden. They are now caring for the wonderful native plants, fruit trees, herbs, and perennials that Open Door Community Health Centers planted during the years that they tended the garden. They strive to create a space of learning, empowerment, nutrition, and regeneration. The garden is located on unceded ancestral Wiyot territory, on property owned and generously leased to Open Door at an affordable rate by the Arcata Presbyterian Church. Pastor Dan Link is a strong advocate for care and compassion for everyone in our community.

According to Cooperation Humboldt Food Team Anchor Tamara McFarland, “Cooperation Humboldt believes that access to nutritious and culturally appropriate food is a human right. We work to create a world where no one will ever go hungry due to lack of wealth or income. Growing public food in common space is an important step toward our goal to return Humboldt County to the regenerative, life-sustaining food forest and ecological haven that it once was.”

Cooperation Humboldt seeks to empower residents with the material, resources, skills and knowledge they need to grow more of their own food. They create structures for resource sharing, cultivate strong partnerships with others working for food sovereignty. They strive to shift community consciousness around food, from seeing it as a commodity to treating it as a fundamental human right.

In early Spring 2020, as the pandemic struck, Cooperation Humboldt realized the need to shift their efforts quickly to get food resources to those who needed them the most. This led to the launch of their Mini Gardens project, and within six months they delivered and installed 260 complete small garden setups to low-income residents. This project teaches participants to grow more of their own food and to share their new skills with friends and family. This year, their goal is to deliver and install at least 520 more mini gardens.

Anyone can donate nonperishable food or personal care items to Cooperation Humboldt’s network of 25 Little Free Pantries in Arcata and Eureka, and anyone can take what they need, 24 hours a day. Their impact has gone far beyond charity by strengthening relationships among neighbors, challenging assumptions about who gives and who takes, and exploring what it means to be in community with one another. This year, they plan to Install at least 10 more Pantries.

For the past three winters, Cooperation Humboldt has planted free fruit trees in public locations in partnership with community members and organizations willing to make the fruit available to anyone who wants some. This spring, they have already planted more than 100 public fruit trees.

For more information contact:
Tobin McKee - Cooperation Humboldt Program Administrator
(707) 407-7300
[email protected]
Tamara McFarland - Cooperation Humboldt Food Team Anchor
(707) 599-2951
[email protected]
Karina Coronado - Centro del Puelo
(707) 683-5293
[email protected]
Brenda Perez - Centro del Pueblo
(707) 683-5293
[email protected]
Pastor Dan Link - Arcata Presbyterian Church
360-969-6564
[email protected]

Food for People is Rebuilding - One Year after the Sewer Disaster
Carly Robbins, Development Director

Can you believe it’s been one year since the sewer disaster at Food for People? Are you scratching your head wondering how you never heard the story?

On February 28, 2020, hopes, dreams, money, paperwork, food, trash cans, and so much more floated out the front door of Food for People, the Food Bank for Humboldt County, on a river of city sewer water. It was a blow to their operations, especially as COVID-19 found its way to our community, stressing our local economy and food system. But worry not, Food for People rebounded quickly with the use of several leased spaces and has been working fast to distribute emergency foods to people seeking assistance across Humboldt County, including those newly impacted by the pandemic.

Now, one year later their Eureka Food Pantry continues to serve food at the temporary location at 2112 Broadway, and the rest of their operations that serve the whole Humboldt County area including the Network of 17 food pantries, Mobile Produce Pantry, Backpacks for Kids and other child nutrition programs, Senior & Homebound services, and CalFresh application assistance, are currently operating out of several leased warehouse and office spaces. Services have adapted and increased to meet the need in our community as many people struggle financially to deal with the hardships 2020 presented. But, it is only a temporary solution to a bigger issue. In order to meet the needs of the community now and into the future, Food for People needs a permanent home to address the severe food insecurity experienced by many locally. Hunger is a prevalent issue in our region. The California Center for Rural Policy’s most recent Food Access Report found that Humboldt County experiences the third-highest rate of food insecurity of California’s 58 counties. Food for People already serves 10% of our County’s population, distributing 2 million pounds of food annually – but this represents only half of the people in our county experiencing poverty, an issue that has been further strained by the pandemic and accompanying economic downturn.

But things are looking up! Back at 14th street, the water has been drained, and Food for People is on a new journey. The damaged building has been entirely demolished and construction of a new and improved facility is set to start in the next few months.

The new building will allow for exciting additions to Food for People’s services:

• Additional warehouse space will enable Food for People to better support and enhance their countywide hunger relief services.
• Make it possible for them to expand services and build space for partners to help connect people with a wider array of community support services that promote long-term stability and lead to a better quality of life.
• Expand Job Training to improve employment prospects for people experiencing adversity by providing essential work skills.
• Improve the quality of food provided by significantly expanding cold storage to prioritize healthy foods, safely accept and store more donated perishable foods and reduce food waste.
• Increase space and resources for Disaster and Emergency Response to serve everyone impacted by the pandemic, wild fires, or any other natural disasters that might occur – which has never been more important.
• Open the doors for a large, on site Choice Pantry to provide people with enough space to choose healthy foods with greater dignity to meet their personal dietary and cultural needs.

Food for People’s goal is to open their new doors for full use next fall. To make this possible, they are working to raise $5 million. Thanks to the generous support of lead donors and our community they have already received $4 million towards the project.

You can support this effort! Let’s put the dark days of 2020 behind us and look to a brighter future. Find out more at RebuildFoodforPeople.org or by contacting Food for People’s Development Director Carly Robbins at (707)445-3166 ext. 306 or [email protected].

• Centro del Pueblo
• Brenda Perez with Adan Cervantes Perez at a community garden.

• Centro del Pueblo

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