Central Downtown Food Basket

The Central Downtown Food Closet started in 1983, by the collaboration of four Sacramento area congregations: St. John's Lutheran Church, Fremont Presbyterian Church, Westminster Presbyterian Church, and Congregation B'nai Israel. CDFC was located at 1214 17th Street and was one of many agencies that belonged to and received food from the Interfaith Service Bureau. In 1987, CDFC went out on its own with the support of thirteen area congregations and began picking up their food from the Senior Gleaners. On April 26, 1995 Mr. Bill Jones, then The Secretary of State, granted The Central Downtown Food Closet the request to change its name to The Central Downtown Food Basket.

In 2003, the State of California took over the property at 1214 17th Street and the rest of the block to build the Department of General Services and Education. CDFB then chose to become a mobile food distribution and has been so for the past 20 years. This has been very successful for CDFB, with three locations and various other Pop Up food distribution sites. We are currently running a successful Pop Up Pantry program at CSUS (Sacramento State University). Since the pandemic, we are continuing to do drive through distributions and to get food to those that are food insecure in a safe and non-stressful environment. This year is a very exciting year in that CDFB will be celebrating 40 years helping and reaching those that are food insecure and we always do this with Dignity and Respect.