The Yolo Food Bank has announced that they will be implementing new mission and vision statements to better reflect their services and the local food system.
In order to further contribute to the health, prosperity and enhanced quality of life of residents of Yolo County, Yolo Food Bank’s new mission aims to “durably increase food and nutrition security and help to create an equitable and sustainable local food system,” according to a press release from Yolo Food Bank.
“The pandemic emergency revealed just how fragile food security had been all along for so many vulnerable, underserved people in Yolo County,” said Yolo Food Bank Executive Director Michael Bisch. “In considering the underlying causes for this, and what powerful lessons from the COVID-19 crisis could influence the future of food access and nutrition in the county, it became clear that our previous mission no longer was descriptive of the service we were providing, much less the potential to impact and advance the entire local food system moving forward.”
The Yolo Food Bank said their new mission statement will work to end hunger and malnutrition in the county by connecting individuals and families to healthy, high-quality food and resources, collaborating with community partners to deepen outreach, and convening key players in the community to plan collective actions.
The organization has also developed a “Theory of Change” to document the strategic pathways leading to the big picture outcomes the organization is looking to advance, the press release said. The new mission, vision and theory of change can be found in their entirety at https://bit.ly/3H0Fb0w.
“The conditions that preceded the pandemic, as well as those that have resulted from it, demand that food assistance programs shift to a more sophisticated approach,” Bisch stated. “Yolo Food Bank has spent much of the past year preparing to embrace this mission and vision by engaging in data collection and analysis to better understand the impact of the services we’re providing already and the residents benefitting from them.”
The Food Bank has also been collaborating with other organizations and leaders, such as UC Davis, to gain new experience and lead to new thought processes.
“Eliminating food insecurity on our UC Davis campus continues to be a primary area of concern and Yolo Food Bank’s robust partnership has been critical in that pursuit,” explained UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May. “The food assistance service that Yolo Food Bank provides to ASUCD The Pantry, the Aggie Compass Basic Needs Center, and Solano Park Pantry is essential in supporting our students’ health and academic achievement.”
The UC Davis Campus Quad will be hosting a forthcoming food distribution in a few weeks in the continuation of its partnership with the food bank.
In 2021, Yolo Food Bank organized and hosted the inaugural “Food for Fairness,” joined in plans for the new Yolo Food Hub initiative to better connect local agricultural workers with the foods they help farm, contributed to Valley Vision’s “2021 Sacramento Region Food System Action Plan,” and added community health and nutrition public policy leader Robb Davis to the team as the organization’s first-ever impact and innovation officer.
“Congruent with our 2021 Regional Action Plan, we look forward to collaborating with Yolo Food Bank to increase our local food system’s resilience,” shared Valley Vision CEO Evan Schmidt. “Our recent Food System Resilience Poll showed that self-reported food insecurity was higher here than the US average overall with disparities existing across racial and economic lines and among age groups, underscoring the importance of food equity initiatives.”
According to Bisch, one of Yolo Food Bank’s biggest challenges is amassing sufficient fiscal resources with more than 90% of the organization’s annual funding being dependent upon donations from individuals and businesses in the community.
“As a result, in 2022, we’re pivoting toward investing our donors’ generous contributions in the food equity work of our new mission and vision, setting aside state-mandated activities that are the responsibility of local governments to fund and execute such as SB 1383 edible food recovery,” Bisch explained. “Yolo Food Bank must focus upon advancing the healthy outcomes that all local residents deserve, thereby increasing their quality of life.”
Yolo Food Bank has a 50-year track record of reducing poverty in Yolo County. To learn more about food access countywide, or to provide funds or volunteer time, visit yolofoodbank.org.
“The food security conversation in Yolo County must move beyond one about simply handing out calories, to one about the role of nutrition in improving people’s lives holistically, individual health in particular,” Bisch added. “Until abundant, nutritious, culturally-appropriate foods consistently are available for all Yolo County residents, food equity will remain elusive.”
