News

Two of the founding members of the Santa Barbara County Food Action Network — Erik Talkin, CEO of Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, and Sigrid Wright, CEO of the Community Environmental Council — sat down with food writer Leslie Dinaberg to discuss how COVID-19 is sending shock waves through a fragile global food system, and why this is a particularly good time to build a healthy, sustainable and decentralized food system.

Ongoing Outbreak Fails to Daunt Small Grocery Store

Santa Barbara County Food Rescue, a program of the Community Environmental Council (CEC), announces multiple collaborations to support county-wide efforts to feed those in need during the COVID-19 crisis.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19, Santa Barbara farm owners, Jeremy and Megan Raff of Dare 2 Dream Farms have seen an exponential boom in baby chick sales, as residents throughout the Coast of California rush to buy and raise backyard chickens. Most recently, the farm sold 950 baby chicks in just ten minutes.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — Once COVID-19 swept across the country, it immediately began affecting fishermen in the Santa Barbara Harbor.

With restaurants experiencing fewer customers, the demand for local seafood significantly dropped.

In order to survive the crisis, longtime local fisherman Stace Cheverez changed his business model.

As part of the Food Bank of Santa Barbara County SAFE Food Net family of food distribution sites, a number of Santa Ynez Valley organizations and businesses are offering food supplies and other household staples to community members in need.

As Santa Barbara County issues an order for community members to wear face masks in public to limit coronavirus, hospital and other health-care workers are still in need of N95 masks.

Last week, India Amarina and Collin Dvorak, of locally based Pacific Grown Organics, donated 500 N95 masks to VNA Health of Santa Barbara (formerly Visiting Nurses and Hospice Care) through their nonprofit arm Pacific Grown Impact.