The mission of DNATL CFC is to strengthen Del Norte’s local food system to cultivate a resilient and nourished North Coast Community.
Our Strategies
Our work is centered around 4 strategies with a focus on identifying and shifting policies and practices to strengthen Del Norte’s local food system.
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Our History
The Del Norte and Tribal Lands (DNATL) Community Food Council (CFC) was founded in 2010 by community members who recognized the pressing need to improve access to healthy food in our region. Over time, this initiative evolved into a key player in enhancing local food systems, promoting food sovereignty, and addressing equity and inclusion in food access. In 2016, to ensure the program's sustainability and growth, DNATL CFC became a fiscally sponsored project of the Family Resource Center of the Redwoods (FRCR). This partnership allowed DNATL CFC to benefit from FRCR’s established infrastructure while maintaining its own leadership and direction through a dedicated DNATL CFC director.
Under this structure, DNATL CFC expanded its programs, increased staff, and broadened its impact across the community. 2018-2023, the DNATL CFC helped launch and run a nutrition-based choice food pantry (Pacific Pantry), a county mobile pantry (Pacific Northwest Fresh), a food bank program, and food recovery program before handing over leadership of emergency food distribution to the Family Resource Center of the Redwoods in Fall of 2023. This decision was made in order to shift a more direct focus on education and training to increase local food production and provide regional supply chain support. Growing demands for staff and facility space began to exceed the capacity of the FRCR and the DNATL CFC decided to transition into an independent nonprofit organization to build on its strong foundation, continue its successful programs, and explore new opportunities to further its mission of promoting equity, access to nutritious local food, and food sovereignty.
We continue to lead and implement our programs that include convening a county-wide food policy council, hosting workshops and events to shift food culture, running a community food forest garden program, managing school gardens, leading county wide emergency food system planning, providing beginning farmer training & land match, organizing local food procurement & aggregation, and developing food system career pathways.
Our Achievements
Since our founding in 2010, we have:
Organized numerous cooking and gardening workshops
Created local celebrations of Food Day
Supported school gardens & community gardens
Promoted local foods, farmers, and farmers markets
Facilitated Del Norte’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program funding stream
Brought Market Match funding to Del Norte’s farmers markets
Helped to expand Del Norte County Unified School District’s Seamless Summer Meals program
Installed four food forests across the county and tribal lands in collaboration with Tolowa Dee-ni Nation
Convened the Del Norte Food Security Taskforce comprised of over a dozen collaborating organizations, meeting regularly to address food insecurity in the County during Covid-19 Pandemic.
Implemented a multi-producer grocery subscription Harvest Box program, putting over $70,000 in the hands of local food producers.
Designed and carried summer Food and Farm Academy for five years and Food & Farm Camp for 4 years at the Taa- ‘at-dvn Chee-ne’ Tetlh-tvm’ Food Forest in Crescent City.
Maintained the County’s only choice-based food pantry; sourcing locally grown food items
Expanded food bank programming and created a mobile pantry program to serve the far reaches of our county.
Collaborated with the Office of Emergency Services and partners in Humboldt County to design a resilient regional food system and ensure emergency food preparedness for regional residents.
Executing a CalRecycle Food Rescue project, currently having recovered and redistributed over 140,000 pounds of food that would otherwise have gone into the landfill.
Worked with the Nature Rights Council and Yurok Food Sovereignty Division Manager to support and further food security and food sovereignty initiatives for the Yurok Tribe.