Understanding and Responding to Hunger in Yolo County
In 2025, the Yolo Food Bank received support to enhance its ongoing work to understand and address the county’s food needs. A $1-million grant from the Sacramento Region Community Foundation had a ripple effect among the Food Bank’s partner organizations, who share the mission of getting food into the hands of all Yolo County residents who need it.
“That’s exciting, because we’re all in this together,” Genevieve Pyeatt, Director of Programs, said.
Since 1970, Yolo Food Bank has existed to provide food directly to those in need. Today, they collaborate with a network of more than 45 partner agencies. At the Food Bank’s Sutter Health Partner Agency Store, these organizations can buy food for their distributions at 19-cents per pound. Each year, the Food Bank distributes 8.8-million pounds of food like produce, shelf-stable items and, as much as possible, protein like meat and beans. The food is brought in through grocery store recovery and donations. It goes out through the Food Bank’s private and public distributions and Family Food Boxes, and through partners’ distributions.
Increasingly, partner agencies are helping inform the direction that Yolo Food Bank’s work takes.
In 2023, the Food Bank conducted a Yolo County survey about food insecurity, demographics, and use of charitable food services. The results revealed nearly a third of residents experience food insecurity, including 52% of households with agriculture workers—a significant problem in many agricultural counties.
“Here are the very people that are either packing the food or picking the food, and they’re the ones that are food insecure,” Karen Baker, Yolo Food Bank Executive Director, said—adding that the survey data has led to new programming. “We keep looking at those findings and they have all the ideas right there of what the needs are.”
The $1-million Sacramento Region Community Foundation grant awarded to Yolo Food Bank last summer supports the expanded Family Food Box Program and Harvest Program, which connects local farms with volunteers who harvest and glean unused produce for the Food Bank to distribute.
Building on the Family Food Box Program, which was piloted in West Sacramento, the Food Bank was able to expand into Esparto and Winters. Through their Cultivo program, funded by Sutter Health, the Food Bank is also able to provide boxes of food delivered directly to agricultural workers at their work or residence. Leveraging funding and partnerships are key to advancing food access work.
Funding from the Sacramento Region Community Foundation also helped continue Yolo Food Bank’s research into improving their accessibility.
“We took some of the funding from the Foundation to do a deeper dive into who our partners are serving. What is the demographic? What types of services do they have? What food needs do they have?” Genevieve explained.
These findings are leading to new ways the Food Bank is working to meet the needs in Yolo County. The Food Bank used additional grant funding to purchase culturally appropriate food, including spices like cumin and saffron, and more protein.
The Yolo Food Bank is accepting donations through its Food is Hope campaign, which all goes directly to the purchase and distribution of food. The organization is also seeking volunteers to add to its roster of 3,000 volunteers who help make the work possible.
