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Volunteers sort food at Redwood Empire Food bankphoto credit: courtesy of REFB Facebook page
Sonoma County residents are stepping up the weekend of November 16th, 2024 to support the community by collecting food for the Redwood Empire Food Bank.
Rachelle Mesheau is the Redwood Empire Food Bank's director of marketing and communications. She says November 16th is a Super Saturday for the food bank; that means multiple events and volunteers gathering to collect food and raise funds, including 200 volunteers sorting produce for three hours.
“If you think about that: 200 volunteers, that would be the equivalent of one week’s worth of work for 15 full time staff,” said Mesheau.
Another event culminating on Saturday is Scouting for Food.
Martin Pang, assistant den leader for Santa Rosa Pack 55 Cub Scouts, says this is a two-weekend event for their scouts. Last weekend the kids headed out to their neighborhoods in the Montgomery Village and Bennet Valley areas, handing out at least 500 pamphlets with a list of non-perishable foods and instructions on when to leave the food for scouts to pick up.
“The Scouts wear their full, what we call Class B uniforms, which is the full garb - the hat, and the little handkerchief, and they look really cute. And that’s what gets a lot of the community excited and involved when they see, you know, a cute 7- or 8-year-old in a scout uniform come up to their doorstep,” said Pang.
Pang says every year Pack 55 gathers between 3,000 and 5,000 pounds of food for the food bank. He says beyond this weekend’s act of service, the scouts learn important life lessons.
“When you build these types of virtues and experiences, and you see that glow in their eyes, they’re gonna carry that with them as they grow up, and become young adults, and eventually adults, and they’re gonna want to give back. And so I think it’s this cycle that we’re trying to build within our community, and it starts with the young kids,” Pang said.
Another group called the Cruisin’ North Car Club has been doing a “turkey run” for more than a decade, and for the last five years, they have dropped off frozen turkeys and cash at the Redwood Empire Food Bank.
“It is cool if it’s not raining to drive our classic cars of course, but if it is raining, we all just drive our dailies, we don’t wanna skip out on the event just because of rain – some of ‘em leak, you know,” said club president Rich Gravelle with a laugh.
Other highlights of Super Saturday include Safeway’s launch of its Nourishing Neighbors campaign for the food bank, and Cranksgiving. That's a bike-powered food drive and scavenger hunt organized by local cycling groups, collecting Thanksgiving-related food.
The Redwood Empire Food Bank serves people in Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte counties. The nonprofit says in 2023, it distributed enough food for over 24 million meals.
