Say ‘Hello’ to Our 2022 Food4All Mini-Grant Partners
Published on Mar 24, 2022 in Immigrants, State Legislation
We are excited to present our 2022 Food4All mini-grant partners! These nine organizations are working closely with Nourish California to uplift the Food4All campaign and communicate its value to policymakers and their own communities.
Thanks to The California Endowment for making these grants possible.
Central Valley Immigrant Integration Collaborative (CVIIC) - Clovis
Mission: CVIIC is dedicated to ensuring full participation of immigrants in building strong, vibrant, inclusive communities. We do this by collaborating, mobilizing, and combining the resources and talents of our allies to offer, on a large scale, high-quality immigration and naturalization services; strengthening and growing the capacity of our members to serve and empower immigrant communities, and support leadership development by leveraging needed public and private sector resources; working to change the dominant discourse about immigrants and immigration; working to achieve policies which support opportunities for immigrants to pursue their dreams.
"CVIIC empowers immigrant families and immigrant-serving organizations in the Central Valley. It is in our core values to advocate for our families who go hungry every day in the Central Valley despite being the nations most important agricultural region. It is time to change this reality."
Jesus Martinez Ph.D, Executive Director
Gender Justice Los Angeles - (GJLA)
Los Angeles
Mission: Gender Justice LA (GJLA), is a grassroots social justice organization led by and for gender non-conforming, two spirit, Black, Indigenous, trans people of color in LA. Gender Justice LA organizes, holds space, provides resources, and collaborates with others so that our communities can: resist oppression, develop community responses to violence, heal from present & historical trauma, and come together in ways that feel brave & affirming.
*We know that personally and culturally, our genders are bigger than the language we have.
"Gender Justice LA believes everyone should have access to care, food, nutrition, and housing. During a critical time of ongoing environmental change, increase of anti-immigrant and anti-Trans legislation, and growing income inequality we must center the needs and voices of frontline communities that are directly being impacted. We envision a world where everyone across California, especially our Trans and migrant communities, are able to live joyful, healthy, and equitable lives."
Sonia Guiñansaca, Director of Outreach
Mixteco Indigena Community Organizing Project (MICOP) - Oxnard
Mission: Mixteco's mission is to support, organize and empower the indigenous migrant communities in California’s Central Coast.
"The fight for Food for All comes a time when we saw the most disparities in health equity, as the pandemic exacerbated the degree of economic status for our families, those with higher incomes were able to fair better during these difficult times while our low income families were hit with less hours at work or even losing their jobs, leaving our immigrant families with little to no resources to support their families. They were battling between being able to meet rent and placing food at the table, further creating food insecurity which affected their health and wellbeing...Expanding access to food benefits regardless of an individual's immigrant status is essential to creating a healthy and thriving community. Food access is a basic human right, no one deserves to be food insecurity due to social and economic pressures that prevent access to healthy, nutritious, and culturally appropriate foods."
Vanessa Teran, Policy Director
Hunger Action LA (HALA) - Los Angeles
Mission: Hunger Action Los Angeles works to end hunger and promote healthy eating through advocacy, direct service, and organizing.
"Despite the attempts by ideologues of all types to divide us into categories by race, age, ability, gender and a host of other artificial dividing lines, all human beings are human beings, and all need to eat and deserve to have enough to eat, or they can’t function. Our government programs, especially CalFresh, can provide us with enough to eat using the regular channels of grocery stores, farmers markets and supermarkets. Being human should be enough reason to expand CalFresh to include all Californians regardless of their immigration status. But if you, or someone you are talking to needs more convincing, I can think of no better justification than what we saw at the start of the pandemic. In the early stages when there were no vaccines (and even masks were hard to come by, if you recall), we saw the depth of inequity when it came to our insistence that certain people (“essential workers” in grocery, retail, manufacturing and many services) keep on working and exposing themselves to this deadly virus, even if they were not eligible for assistance to feed their families due to the burdensome and unjust immigration rules of CalFresh. In the long run the program is cheaper and feeds more hungry people when you remove these restrictions that cost time and money to enforce."
Frank Tamborello, Director, Hunger Action LA
National Health Foundation (NHF) - Los Angeles
Mission: National Health Foundation's mission is to improve the health of under-resourced communities.
"NHF supports SB 464 Food4All because we believe that every person should be able to achieve their highest level of health; and having adequate food access is essential to that. Too often in the communities we work with, people experience food insecurity simply because of where they came from. Passing SB 464 Food4All will ensure our communities have a foundation for being healthy and would bring us closer to being a community that acknowledges the dignity of every community member."
Chad Monk, Director, Community Initiatives
San Diego Hunger Coalition - San Diego
Mission: San Diego Hunger Coalition leads coordinated action to end hunger in San Diego County supported by research, education, and advocacy.
"Implementing Food4All will be a monumental step in establishing equitable access to CalFresh for all residents, regardless of their immigration status. San Diego Hunger Coalition is excited to continue its partnership with hunger relief agencies across the state to remove the institutional barriers to food access.”
Amanda Schultz Brochu, Chief Program Officer
South Asian Network (SAN) - Artesia
Mission: The South Asian Network (SAN) is a community-based organization that provided direct services to and advocacy on behalf of South Asians in Southern California in the areas of health & well-being, civil rights and civic engagement, and gender-based violence.
"SAN supports SB-464 Food4All because it will increase access to healthy food for our most vulnerable community members, regardless of immigration status. "
Shakeel Syed, Executive Director
Visión y Compromiso (VyC) - Statewide
Mission: Visión y Compromiso (VyC) is committed to community well-being by supporting Promotoras and Community Health Workers. Our vision is Hacia una Vida Digna y Sana, Healthy and Dignified Living for All."
"We support SB 464 - Food 4 All because we believe that everyone regardless of their immigration status, deserves to have healthy food on their plates as part of a dignified life. "
Veronica Arciga Barriga, Promotoras Network Regional Manager
UC San Diego Youth Advisory Council - San Diego
Mission: Comprised of passionate young leaders from throughout San Diego, the UC San Diego Youth Advisory Council (YAC) is a group of highly motivated, hard-working, and passionate young people dedicated to improving health for San Diego communities, especially those communities which have experienced historical and systemic health inequities. Through advocacy and projects planned and led by YAC youth leaders, members work to change the social and environment factors that impact health.
"SB 464 Food4All supports our goal of reducing the inequitable rates of obesity and diabetes in under-resourced neighborhoods by creating environments that provide access to healthy foods and ample opportunities for healthy eating. Food is vital to the health and wellbeing of all people and immigration status should not be a barrier to good health."
Asmaa Deiranieh, Program Manager
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