Food Forward

While there are several indicators that Food Forward’s work addresses - such as Health and Environmental Quality - we are focusing on our impact on Social Connectedness for this funding opportunity. According to the LA 2050 study, our county fares poorly on several indicators of social connectedness: Los Angeles ranks 46th among the largest 51 metro areas in volunteerism; Angelenos are less trusting of their neighbors than the nation as a whole; and fewer Angelenos expect to stay in their community for five years or more compared to the national average.

Food Forward offers solutions to these negative trends by providing over 4,000 volunteer opportunities this year, in multiple languages, and as a result connects a myriad of communities across Los Angeles County. If awarded, LA2050 funding would allow us to deepen our highly effective work in areas such as South LA and the San Gabriel Valley. In less than four years since its founding in 2009, Food Forward has established itself as the largest volunteer-powered urban gleaning program operating in California.

We implement innovative strategies that bring people together, often in neighborhoods they would otherwise have never visited, to rescue fresh and nutritious produce from local sources, produce which would otherwise go to waste, and put it in the hands of those who need it the most. Operating just in the greater Los Angeles region, over 5,000 Food Forward volunteers have recovered and donated a cumulative 1.37 million pounds (over 6.5 million servings) of fresh produce from public and private land, wholesale markets and several of our cities largest farmers markets. Our programs convert food (and environmental) waste into a sustainable supply of healthy and nutritious produce desperately needed by local communities and hunger relief programs, which in turn has a huge positive impact on the health of people in our community.

Food Forward operates almost exclusively through social media and relies solely on volunteers to carry out our produce recovery activity. This design not only allows us to operate more cost-efficiently than other hunger-relief nonprofit organizations, but it provides an ideal mechanism through which engaged community members are connected with each other, with new geographies within Los Angeles and with the rich agricultural history of the region. Through Food Forward, volunteers work shoulder to shoulder with other volunteers, nonprofit organizations, farmers, landowners, and corporations with whom they would otherwise not likely have contact. Together they are gaining a deeper understanding of how our personal involvement in the processes of growing, sourcing and distributing food can directly reduce hunger, combat food waste and re-engage with Los Angeles as a past and present agricultural landscape. Engaging in backyard harvesting or recovering produce at a local farmers market are dynamic experiences that empower community members to be actual agents of change.

Over 85% of Food Forward’s volunteer events are regularly oversubscribed and have waiting lists. Through the LA2050 program, our organization would have the opportunity to dramatically expand our key produce recovery programs by capitalizing on the large number of Angelenos who are willing and waiting to contribute their time, energy and food resources to reducing hunger in our communities. By the end of 2013, Food Forward would like to see our Farmers Market Program expand from five to nine local markets throughout Los Angeles County and bring backyard harvesting to new neighborhoods, particularly in the San Gabriel Valley where there are tremendous untapped resources such as volunteers, mature and un-harvested fruit trees and numerous farmers markets.