Posted on Nov 25, 2021
| 4:00 p.m.
As we get ready to celebrate the holidays with our families and friends this holiday season, we also take some time to think about giving back to our community. Join Noozhawk on this #GivingTuesday and donate to a local nonprofit.
Noozhawk is working with local nonprofits to encourage you to attend International Donation Day, which takes place on November 30, 2021.
It’s no secret that the last year and a half has been challenging. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, local nonprofits need your support more than ever.
Our Good for Santa Barbara nonprofit section has all of the resources you need to start donating this Christmas season, including a full Giving Guide with a list of local nonprofits that need your help this Giving Tuesday.
In this interview, Noozhawk spoke to Diana O’Connell, Executive Director at Veggie Rescue to learn more about how the nonprofit is dedicated to improving the diet and quality of life of community members struggling with food insecurity by providing them with healthy, Regional products and high quality dishes.
Vegetable rescue
Question: What is the name and mission of your nonprofit organization?
Answers: Veggie Rescue’s mission is to improve the diet and quality of life of community members struggling with food insecurity by providing healthy, local produce and quality prepared food, and to work with farmers and local businesses to reduce food waste.
To fulfill our mission, Veggie Rescue works with over 50 farms and businesses in SB County to save fresh produce that would otherwise be wasted.
We then deliver that food to over 65 food pantries, shelters, senior centers, and home delivery and youth programs that feed needy community members, from Santa Maria to Carpinteria. We fight food insecurity, reduce food waste and greenhouse gas emissions, and deliver nutrient-rich products to those in our county who would otherwise not have access.
Q: How is your nonprofit mainly funded and what are your greatest needs?
A: Everything Veggie Rescue does to feed our community is free. She is on call seven days a week, providing transportation for farmers to get the most out of produce that would otherwise not be sold, and delivering groceries to nonprofits that run charity feeding throughout Santa Barbara County.
We rely on contributions and grants to support 100% of our activities. Our greatest effort and need is to keep our small fleet of two refrigerated vehicles and one refrigerated van running and paying our three part-time drivers to make all of this possible.
Q: How has COVID-19 affected your nonprofit?
A: Veggie Rescue has been a nonprofit since 2011, and started out as a fully voluntary follow-up program with volunteers harvesting from small farms, orchards, and backyards and donating up to 50,000 pounds of harvested produce per year to a number of nonprofits in the Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Barbara.
While we still have volunteers reading up, over the years we’ve moved to a small team of paid drivers who collect harvested groceries from small farms, farmers markets, and businesses, and deliver products and quality ready-made meals to a growing number of nonprofits across the country SB County deliver.
In 2020, Veggie Rescue diversified our food rescue program beyond our traditional farmer partnerships as the amount of food waste increases in the restaurant supply chain and a growing number of our county residents need assistance. These changes included partnering with a national restaurant delivery company to reclaim prepared and packaged food, delivering meals prepared for charity, and generally increasing the amount of food rescued from £ 139,000 to £ 516,000, an increase of 275% in one year.
That was equivalent to a $ 900,000 meal and 430,000 meals. In 2021, we continued to add new farm partners and charitable beneficiaries, and we’re well on our way to saving over 550,000 pounds of food. This new level of operations, which we believe will not diminish, supported by government stimulus programs and the generosity of local residents through COVID-19 emergency grants, has increased our operating costs by $ 90,000 per year, or 47%.
In addition to growing our food recovery program, Veggie Rescue responded in April 2020 to a need in the city of Los Alamos trying to figure out how to feed those residents hardest hit by job losses. After we recently completed the construction of our first prototype for a mobile solar cooling system, we loaned our solar cooler to the Los Alamos Foundation. This enabled them to create and operate a pantry for the city’s residents and use the Solar Cooler to receive food donations from Foodbank of SB and Veggie Rescue from April 2020 to April 2021.
Q: How does your nonprofit use its funding?
A: Veggie Rescue consists of a small but agile staff. With just two full-time and three part-time employees, the majority of our funds go to keeping our small fleet of vehicles on the roads and our three part-time drivers who collect groceries from farms and farmers’ markets
and companies. Our high-touch model, focused on getting the most out of rescued food, includes delivery to over 65 small nonprofits, from Carpinteria to Santa Maria and Guadalupe.
Q: How do people get involved in your non-profit organization?
A: Anyone interested in learning more about Veggie Rescue can reach us through our website or send a message to [email protected].
There are several ways for people to get involved in Veggie Rescue.
- Let yourself be added to our follow-up volunteer list, on whom we report when small farms or homeowners have products that need to be picked or harvested and then donated.
- Get added to the Cooking Volunteer List to reduce food waste and improve access to nutritious ready-made meals for the most vulnerable in our community.
- We are growing! And we seek people interested in joining a committee to keep us connected with the communities we serve, expand our programs, and spread the word about our work.
Thanks to our farmers! (Photo of the vegetable rescue)
Q: What is the difference between your non-profit organization and others?
A: Veggie Rescue is privileged to make a difference in our community in many different ways. We are countering food insecurity by offering feeding programs with locally grown products and high-quality ready-made meals. This year we’re well on our way to delivering 466,000 meals or $ 980,000 worth of groceries that would otherwise be wasted to nonprofits across the county.
We believe there is enough fresh produce for everyone and people in need can be connected to fresh produce outside the traditional market. We offer free access to fresh products that low-income families and senior citizens with fixed incomes cannot otherwise afford.
We care about the health of our community and seek partnerships with programs that are able to prepare healthy meals from the products we have rescued, as well as provide nutrition and cooking training to help families find healthier eating habits.
Finally, we reduce food waste. Food waste in the US uses 14% of our water, makes up 24% of our landfills, and causes 4% of the greenhouse gases produced in our country.
Q: What’s a best kept secret or fun fact about your nonprofit that not everyone knows?
A: A little-known secret is that being a driver at Veggie Rescue is one of the best jobs in Santa Barbara County. You can work outdoors without a computer, visit farms and farmers markets to pick up food that will be donated, and then walk around the county.
Q: Can you give us a short term AND long term goal your nonprofit has for the next year?
A: A short-term goal is to further optimize our collaboration with SYV Community Kitchen, where fresh, rescued products are turned into nutritious meals by volunteers and then distributed by Veggie Rescue to nonprofits that feed people in need who may not have access to one Have kitchen.
Our goal is to document everything we learn along the way and share it with other community kitchens in Santa Barbara County through the newly created SBCFAN website to help others get started on programs like this one. A long-term goal is to further reduce food waste by developing and selling an upcycled product made from rescued food or edible by-products to generate an income to support our free services.
Click here to support Veggie Rescue’s mission to improve the diet and quality of life for community members struggling with food insecurity by providing them with healthy, local produce and quality prepared foods
