A Guide to San Diego Food Non-Profits
Community is all about give and take. For those of us who count ourselves amoung the food community, this can mean many things. Some of us are obsessed with farming policies that can mean life or death for our county's growers. Others of us are on fire about eating for health and making nutrition accessible to all. No matter where your passions for food and the food system lie, there are groups fighting the good fight right here in San Diego County who could use your support. Find a cause that resonates you, and then find a way to give back.
2-1-1 San Diego
2-1-1 connects locals to programs that help them stay healthy and well-nourished.
Backyard Produce Project
Run by all volunteers, Backyard Produce Project provides a way to share backyard produce with families in need.
Berry Good Food Foundation
The Berry Good Food Foundation advances a healthy, integrated food system by educating, connecting, and supporting food producers and consumers.
Bread of Life
Bread of Life Rescue Mission serves the poor, hungry and homeless in North San Diego County through warm evening meals, sack lunches, food boxes, and other services.
Brightside Produce
Brightside Produce, in partnership with students from SDSU is a self-sustaining social venture that delivers fresh produce to small food stores in underserved communities.
Brother Benno’s Center
Originally a soup kitchen, Brother Benno’s has expanded its services over the years to ensure that no one goes hungry and to help guests attain self-sufficiency.
Chef Celebration Foundation
Chef Celebration Foundation of San Diego strives to enhance the knowledge and potential of promising young chefs and lay a foundation of excellence for San Diego’s culinary future.
Community Health Improvement Partners (CHIP): Farm to Institution Center
The two fold mission of the Farm to Institution Center is: to improve community health by improving access and consumption of healthy foods, and to support farmers in creation of a vibrant, diverse, and growing local agricultural scene. We work to create a healthy and sustainable local food system, focusing primarily on the connection between local farm and institution as a pathway of good food into the community.
Coastal Roots Farm
Coastal Roots Farm is a community farm and education center that cultivates healthy, connected communities through sustainable agriculture, food justice, and ancient Jewish wisdom.
Community Christian Service Agency
Community Christian Service Agency provides emergency services to individuals and families in need in San Diego County, including food for families and meals for the homeless.
Community Food Connection
Community Food Connection brings food to families one community at a time and serves over 800 local families every month.
Community Resource Center
Community Resource Center helps those in need avoid hunger with a food distribution center, meal prep and nutrition classes, and an annual holiday event.
Dreams for Change: Eat Better Today
Dreams for Change’s Eat Better Today program runs a mobile food truck that serves hot and healthy meals to those living on the streets or in their cars.
ECOLIFE Conservation
ECOLIFE Conservation integrates aquaponics systems in underserved communities to provide access to organic and healthy foods, educate youth on STEM concepts, and offer sustainable alternatives to conventional agriculture.
Fallbrook Food Pantry
Since 1991, Fallbrook Food Pantry has provided food to low income and disadvantaged families in the community.
Feeding San Diego
Feeding San Diego leads the community in the fight against hunger by efficiently providing access to food and nutritious meals.
Father Joe’s Villages: Franklin Antonio Lunch Program
Father Joe’s Villages lunch program nourishes homeless men, women and children and provides an average of 1 million meals each year.
Friendly Feast
Friendly Feast supports charitable organizations through culinary fundraising events that foster friendships between chefs, farmers, and food producers.
Gleaning Field Foundation
The Gleaning Field Foundation is an all volunteer faith-based organization that serves the homeless, poor and low income families and individuals in North San Diego County.
Harvest CROPS
Harvest CROPS gleans residential fruit with volunteers for the benefit of community members who lack access to fresh food.
Helping Hand Worldwide
Helping Hand Worldwide relieves daily hunger and improves the health and the quality of life of local families through food distribution programs and advocacy.
Inika Food2Soil
Inika recovers value from waste through composting programs and sourcing farm seconds.
Interfaith Community Services
Interfaith Community Services’ nutrition programs include emergency food assistance and hot morning meals for homeless or low-income community members.
International Rescue Committee: New Roots
Through a community farm in City Heights, the IRC’s New Roots program helps refugees reestablish their ties to the land, celebrate their heritage, and nourish themselves and their neighbors.
International Rescue Committee: Project CHOP
The IRC's social enterprise Project CHOP employs newly arrived refugees to handcraft vegetable platters paired with original flavorful dips inspired by the extraordinary culinary traditions of San Diego's refugee communities.
Jewish Family Service of San Diego (Hand Up Youth Food Pantry)
Jewish Family Service alleviates food insecurity through a range of programs, including home-delivered meals, a food pantry, and teen leadership development.
Just Call Us Volunteers
Just Call Us Volunteers collaborates with other nonprofits to positively impact the lives of San Diego’s low-income and homeless adults and children by serving free healthy meals and teaching hands-on cooking classes using fresh, often organic, and nutritious ingredients.
Kitchens for Good
Kitchens for Good aims to break the cycles of food waste, poverty, and hunger through innovative programs in workforce training, healthy food production, and social enterprise.
Leah’s Pantry
Leah’s Pantry catalyzes healthy food choices among low-income individuals and families through Food Smarts curricula, Eatfresh.org online tools, and training for staff.
Little Dandelions
Little Dandelions teaches and educates kids through the process of agriculture, by sharing educational information through hands-on activities and encouraging healthy lifestyle choices.
Loaves and Fishes Food Pantry
Loaves and Fishes feeds the hungry by providing bags of food and toiletries to the working poor, unemployed, and homeless in the Ocean Beach and surrounding areas.
Mama’s Kitchen
Mama’s Kitchen provides nutrition services to improve the lives of women, men, and children vulnerable to hunger due to HIV, cancer, or other critical illnesses.
Meals on Wheels
Meals on Wheels cares for the health, safety, and well-being of San Diego’s seniors by delivering nutritious meals to their homes seven days a week.
Olivewood Gardens and Learning Center
Olivewood Gardens’ Cooking for Salud! program empowers families to take control of their health through the foods they eat and prepare at home.
Outside the Bowl
Outside the Bowl eliminates physical and spiritual starvation in impoverished communities by building Super Kitchens and working with established community partners to serve hot, nutritious meals to those who need them most.
Produce Good
Produce Good finds sustainable solutions to alleviate hunger, reclaim and repurpose waste, and promote the health and well-being of all.
Project New Village
Project New Village strengthens communities in Southeastern San Diego through the development of beautiful, beneficial, and bountiful neighborhood food options.
San Diego Coffee Training Institute
The San Diego Coffee Training Institute (SDCTI)'s mission is to empower and elevate vulnerable populations to self-sufficiency through the advancement of coffee.
San Diego Food System Alliance
San Diego Food System Alliance is a collaborative of nonprofits, food businesses, government entities, farmers, fishermen, and community members committed to improving San Diego’s food environment.
San Diego Food Bank
The Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank is the largest hunger-relief organization in San Diego County.
San Diego Hunger Coalition
Leads coordinated action to end hunger in San Diego County supported by research, education, and advocacy.
San Diego Rescue Mission: Partners for Hunger Relief
Through the collaborate program Partners for Hunger Relief, the San Diego Rescue Mission collects and distributes millions of pounds of nutritious food that would otherwise be wasted.
San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project
San Diego Roots Sustainable Food Project educates, cultivates, and empowers sustainable food communities through Wild Willow Farm & Education Center.
San Diego Sustainable Living Institute
San Diego Sustainable Living Institute educates the next generation of permaculture and water harvesting experts and guides San Diego into a greener future.
Santee Food Bank
The Santee Food Bank is run by neighbors helping neighbors, committed to ensuring that no one in the community goes hungry.
Second Chance
Second Chance carries out its mission to disrupt the cycles of incarceration and poverty by helping people find their way to self-sufficiency by providing workforce readiness training and job placement programs to youth and adults, transitional housing, behavioral health treatment and financial literacy training. They run a CSA program and farm stand staffed by participants and volunteers.
Serra Mesa Food Pantry
The Serra Mesa Food Pantry lessens the impact of hunger in our community by providing food to individuals and families struggling to obtain basic necessities during illness, unemployment, or other crises.
Senior Gleaners of San Diego County
Every week volunteers over the age of 55 glean excess food from groves, backyards, fields, grocery stores and restaurants throughout San Diego County and deliver this surplus food to non-profit agencies for the most vulnerable and hungry in our community.
Slow Food Urban San Diego
Slow Food Urban San Diego is a local chapter of the national organization Slow Food USA, and its parent organization Slow Food International. It is a global, grassroots movement with thousands of members around the world that links the pleasure of food with a commitment to community and the environment.
SMART Farms via Human Smarts
SMARTS Farm teaches and connects residents and youth to fresh produce and education about urban gardening.
So Others May Eat
So Others May Eat provides food and advocacy for the homeless and disabled in the coastal communities of San Diego County.
Solutions Farms
Solutions Farms is an aquaponics farm, social enterprise, and laboratory for teaching important work values and preparing people for re-entry into the workforce.
Special Delivery SD
Special Delivery provides meals to medically homebound people living with AIDS, cancer, and other critical illnesses throughout the San Diego community.
Taking Control of Your Diabetes (TCOYD)
TCOYD transforms the way people live with and manage diabetes through nationwide live conferences and educational programs.
The Gerson Institute
The Gerson Institute is a non-profit organization located in San Diego, California, dedicated to providing education and training in an alternative, non-toxic treatment for cancer and other chronic degenerative diseases.
Triton Food Pantry
The Triton Food Pantry provides a discreet service to UCSD students in need of food and builds a network of food resources and awareness about food insecurity.
UCSD Center for Community Health
The UCSD Center for Community Health transforms health and wellness in diverse communities by improving health equity.
Urban Angels
Urban Angels nourishes and provides food for the homeless of San Diego.
UrbanLife
UrbanLife provides thousands of meals each year to neighborhood youth and equips these same youth with job skills and training through UrbanLife Farms.
Have we missed any? Email our digitial editor at felicia@ediblesandiego.com with updates.
