Fresher Sacramento

Founded in 2006 by Rabbi David Azen, and now part of the Goodwill family of non-profits, Fresher Sacramento (originally Fresh Producers) started out to reverse childhood obesity by increasing opportunities for youth to develop leadership and professional skills through creation and management of distribution outlets for fresh produce at existing neighborhood facilities such as schools, clubs, and congregations. Fresher has been on the leading edge of innovation in healthier food access and consumption by pioneering healthy fundraising through sales of produce rather than candy and cookie dough, installing garden beds and a gardening curriculum to give incarcerated youth at the Sacramento County Youth Detention facility a taste of a better path toward learning and earning, providing afterschool programming including running produce stands, cooking classes and entrepreneurial coaching, and now has the first in the country authorization for accepting food assistance funds for meals that can be distributed at partner non-profits throughout underserved neighborhoods.

We are keeping costs low by using existing commercial kitchens, buying, and prepping in bulk and using regionally sourced ingredients whenever possible. We are making the meals easy to get by delivering where people already are picking up their children, or coming home from work and other activities: community centers, congregations, Boys & Girls Clubs, housing complexes. We are taking advantage of our ultimate competitive edge: these meals can be purchased with food assistance funds -- as far as we know, a first in the nation innovation that completes the trifecta of affordability, convenience and great food. For as little as $20 a week, we can guarantee dinner is on the table every night, and every 200 Fresher Consumers enable us to train and hire a Fresher Chef. We aim to make sure our babies have no choice but to be born healthy by breaking the vicious cycle of poverty, poor nutrition, and premature mortality and replacing it with a nutritious cycle of health, wealth, and skills for life. Let us work together to make every neighborhood in Sacramento Fresher.