Everyone deserves healthy, nutritious food in order to thrive. It’s one of the reasons we created Numi Foundation eleven years ago, and why we’re announcing today that we’ve partnered with Salesforce and the Curry family’s Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation on an initiative to connect low-income families with unsold, fresh produce that might have otherwise gone to waste due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
What started as a small pilot, with just 180 families in Oakland, has grown into something truly momentous with the help of our partners. The program connects two communities in need: local families suffering from food insecurity, and local, minority-owned farms who are unable to sell millions of pounds of fresh produce due to the closure of restaurants.
Together with our operational partners Growing Together Project, World Central Kitchen and Full Harvest, we’ve already served more than 7,000 boxes of fresh food (100K+ pounds!) to nearly 7,000 low-income families within the Oakland Unified School District. Our next goal is to deliver 30,000 boxes, saving more than 300 tons of farm produce from waste in the process.
54 million Americans face food insecurity as a direct result of COVID-19, including 1 in 4 children. And COVID has only magnified the structural inequalities that persist in Oakland. While public schools remain closed, it is critical to fill the nutrition gap left by free and reduced lunch, especially for BIPOC families who are disproportionately affected by hunger. 100% of the families participating in the program are minorities, and 75% have no current income due to the pandemic. Now more than ever, we are called to work together and support the community that has been Numi’s home since our founding 20 years ago.
Numi Foundation is honored to work with an esteemed group of partners and funders on this innovative program. In addition to Salesforce, Eat.Learn.Play., Full Harvest, and World Central Kitchen, we want to thank The Clorox Company Foundation, Wells Fargo, EO Products, Jill Dailey of The Dailey Method, Growing Together, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD), John Roulac, Sanzuma, Tom Steyer and Kat Taylor of the TomKat Foundation, Mandela Partners, Pacific Rim, and FreshR for their support.
Learn more about this program’s impact from Salesforce, and fill out this form if you’re interested in helping us scale up to serve even more families in need!