Community donations now critical to keep fresh produce on tables across Placer, El Dorado and Nevada counties
Roseville, Calif.- For the past three years, something quietly remarkable has been happening in our Roseville warehouse. Once a week, deliveries would roll in from local farms across El Dorado, Placer and Nevada counties. Sometimes the driver would call ahead to say he was running a little late because the crew was still out in the fields, finishing the harvest that morning. That fresh, that local.
That program ended in April.
The Local Food Purchase Assistance program, or LFPA, was a USDA grant created in 2022 to connect food banks directly with small, socially disadvantaged farms. The idea was simple: food banks get high-quality, locally grown produce, and small farms get a reliable customer who pays fair prices and helps them grow.
Since the program launched, Feeding the Foothills has spent more than $600,000 purchasing from farms across our three-county service area. That's $600,000 poured directly back into our local agricultural economy. We've sourced more than 130,000 pounds of fresh, often organic produce, including fruits and vegetables that farms like Triple B Farmstead in Loomis were literally planting based on our orders.
The results landed in school snack bags, senior nutrition boxes, PantryToGo distributions and direct pantry services for families across the foothills. But the federal funding behind LFPA is gone. The program won't be renewed. That leaves a gap on two sides of the same table: families in our community will lose access to high-quality local produce, and the farms that built their planting plans around our partnership will lose a major customer. Some of them upgraded their entire invoicing and operations infrastructure to work with us. Now the contract is ending.
This is how federal disinvestment in hunger relief works in practice. It's not abstract. It shows up as a phone call to a farmer in Loomis. It shows up as fewer crates of apples at a PantryToGo distribution in El Dorado County.
Here's where you come in…
On Thursday, May 7, Feeding the Foothills joins hundreds of regional nonprofits for the Sacramento Region's Big Day of Giving, a 24-hour community fundraising event. This year, we've created a new giving level in direct response to the loss of LFPA: the Farm-to-Neighbor Partner.
For $1,500, your donation helps us maintain direct purchasing partnerships with local farms, keeping fresh produce flowing to our neighbors and keeping local agriculture viable. That's the full circle. You support the farm, the farm feeds the food bank, the food bank feeds your neighbor.
But every gift matters, at every level. Just $25 provides a week of fresh fruits and vegetables for a family of four. Every dollar raised equals six meals. Our goal is $70,000 on May 7, and with early giving open April 23, you can plan your gift now.
We serve more than 85,000 neighbors each month across El Dorado, Placer and Nevada counties. Demand has not slowed, but the critical funding has. The LFPA gap is just the latest in a series of federal and state program reductions that have squeezed our purchasing power even as our lines get longer.
What hasn't changed is this community's willingness to show up. Every year, this region proves that neighbors take care of neighbors. Big Day of Giving is how we put that instinct to work.
To give or schedule your early donation, visit bigdayofgiving.org/feedingthefoothills.
