As our SFC staff work from home, we’re hoping that you and yours are safe, healthy and surrounded by love. It’s a challenging time that tests our resilience, but I’m confident we’ll get through this together.

Sadly, SFC has to cancel Farm to Plate, our annual fundraising event, for the first time in its 13-year history due to the COVID-19 crisis. Along with keeping all Farm to Plate attendees safe, we are sensitive to the immense challenges our amazing chef and restaurant partners are facing during this unprecedented time.

This is one of the most important letters I’ve written during my tenure as the SFC Executive Director. As long lines grow at grocery stores and demand for food in our community spikes, our work is more critical than ever.

• Our SFC Farmers’ Markets Downtown and Sunset Valley remain open as essential food-access points. Our team has been working around the clock, using more SFC resources than ever before, to ensure the safety of all our market shoppers and vendors.
• We are tirelessly advocating on behalf of growers to be sure locally grown food reaches those who need it most, including our neighbors who receive food assistance and may not be able to find what they need at overburdened grocery stores.
• We are redoubling our food access efforts through Double Up Food Bucks and mailing seeds to our Spread the Harvest program participants to ensure broad access to healthy food for everyone in our community during this time of crisis.

But we are facing a financial challenge which is forcing me and my team to make decisions I hadn’t imagined. The cancellation of our fundraising event this late in our fiscal year is having a severely negative impact on our ability to raise money for our vital services now. So, I’m asking you to help us reach our goal of raising $300,000 - the same amount we had hoped to raise through our Farm to Plate event.

With your partnership, we can continue our critical support of farmers who are facing unbelievable challenges and low-income families who have been the most impacted by this pandemic.

Please, if there was ever a time to invest in the work of SFC, it’s right now.