Community Corner
Food Banks Now Banking on Organic, Wholesome Food
The 6-year-old Watsonville company Field Fresh Farms was honored Monday for donating thousands of pounds of fresh food to the Second Harvest Food Bank.
CEO Anthony Cagnacci's reasons were simple for why his organic produce company donates truckloads of food to people who can't afford it.
"We don't do this for the awards or the recognition," he said after being given a proclamation and thank-yous from a host of local dignitaries Monday.
"We love to help out the community any way we can. We're a local business. Most of our employees are local. All of their families are local. So we do feel a connection to the community."
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He was following one of the themes of Monday's 6th Nutrition Summit held by Second Harvest Food Bank at Twin Lakes Church in Aptos: If you help people eat healthily, they will be better able to contribute and keep the community going strong.
The Summit educates agencies in such things as food preparation and safety.
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Field Fresh Farms represented a new theme in helping people who need food. Rather than send them away with bags of cans and processed food that contributes more to keeping them fat than to providing nutrition, the new way to deal with food is to treat it like a produce market.
"There's nothing more important than local food," said Santa Cruz Supervisor Mark Stone. "Food that comes to us in the appropriate season at the appropriate time. That's the food you provide, thousands and thousands of pounds.
"It's so sad to know how advanced a society we have, and yet, to know how many people are hungry even in Santa Cruz County and the bad choices they are making in terms of nutrition."
Several agencies including Passion for Produce, the Salvation Army and Inner Light Ministries, talked about campaigns to turn food banks into something more like the Food Channel. They have hired chefs to teach people how to cook with natural ingredients and how to use healthy vegetables they may not be familiar with, such as kale.
They hold cooking demonstrations and provide classes to help people eat healthily. Many said that people who need food feel better about getting it this way, instead of being handed a bag of groceries.
Among the people who honored Field Fresh were County Supervisor Mark Stone, Capitola Mayor Dennis Norton, Watsonville Mayor Pro Tem, Eduardo Montecino and representatives from the offices of Assemblymen Bill Monning, Sam Blakeslee, Luis Alejo, Congressman Sam Farr and State Senator Joe Simitian.
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