ABOUT US

Sonoma Family Meal (SFM) is committed to strengthening our local food economy and nourishing our community in times of crisis and stability. At our community kitchen, we convert locally sourced ingredients and rescued perishables into meals for families and seniors experiencing food insecurity, while providing culinary career training and food-business support. During disasters, we proactively coordinate resources to provide quality emergency meals for those who have been impacted.

OUR MISSION

Sonoma Family Meal cultivates the community and creates opportunities by providing job training, quality emergency meals and support for the local food ecosystem.

OUR VISION

Sonoma Family Meal envisions an equitable, sustainable and resilient food ecosystem.

Since 2017, SFM has provided more than 750,000 meals to disaster survivors and food-insecure families in Sonoma County. During the tragic wildfires of 2017, SFM founder Heather Irwin realized that thousands of families were displaced from their homes, in need of comforting, chef-made meals to eat wherever they were staying. With more than 5,000 homes lost in the Tubbs fire, one of the most harrowing and tragic disasters in Sonoma County history, local food writer Heather Irwin decided to start a prepared meal program and partnered with local restaurant partners to serve nearly 20,000 meals in four weeks.

SFM continued to serve flood survivors, first responders and evacuees of Sonoma County wildfires throughout 2018 and 2019. In 2020, SFM adapted its model to respond to the unique circumstances of the pandemic and shifted from creating meals in a large kitchen with many volunteers to a restaurant-based model, paying more than $1.7 million to a network of 20 chef partners throughout Sonoma County and keeping hundreds of workers employed. At the end of 2021, SFM opened its community kitchen in east Petaluma, the organization’s first permanent home after borrowing eight kitchens during the past five years.

The new space enables SFM to expand its mission and increase its impact. At the kitchen, our chefs continue to provide nutritious, “heat-n-serve” meals to the food insecure year-round while conducting culinary career training and food-business support targeted to underserved populations in the community.