Food to Freedom
Nourishing bodies, feeding sovereignty
The Food to Freedom program transforms the fundamental act of eating into a powerful expression of sovereignty, dignity, and community resilience, serving over 2,200 unique individuals while channeling more than $650,000 annually back into the local Black and BIPOC food economy — restaurants, farms, and incubator kitchens.
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Transforming food access into food justice
Our most popular program, the Farm Fresh Market recreates the grocery store experience with abundance, dignity and choice, at zero cost to our participants. Our community members select organic produce, culturally relevant provisions, and prepared meals from neighborhood chefs. We need to move beyond food provision as an emergency response and toward sustainable change. The Food to Freedom program reimagines how to provide access to delicious, nutritious food in a way that honors cultural traditions, supports local food producers, and ensures that no one in our community goes hungry while maintaining their dignity and autonomy.
Growing and nurturing a movement
Food to Freedom also serves as the backbone of a larger movement for food justice in San Francisco. Through our leadership of FAACTS (Food and Agriculture Action Coalition Toward Sovereignty), we've united over 30 organizations that collectively feed 70,000 households—one in eight San Franciscans—in pursuit of systemic change. From teaching youth permaculture to supporting Black farmers, we're rebuilding food systems that nourish culture alongside bodies.
PHOTO CREDIT: LISA FRARE
PHOTO CREDIT: EMILY RUDISILL
Partnership Spotlight
EARTHseed Farm
Our partnership with EARTHseed Farm exemplifies food sovereignty in action. This Black-owned, Afro-Indigenous permaculture farm facilitates intergenerational learning experiences where our youth and elders work the land together, passing down agricultural wisdom and strengthening connections between food, culture, and identity that industrial food systems have severed. EARTHseed regularly provides nutritious food for our clients.
Partnership Spotlight
Food Action Summit
In March 2024, FAACTS organized a two-day, citywide Food Action Summit, bringing together a remarkable range of stakeholders, including rural farmers, local producers and vendors, food service workers and their unions, restaurant leaders, healthcare professionals, and grassroots leaders and organizations with a common vision to create cohesion, power, and strength in the food justice community. Together, these leaders created and attended workshops, shared meals, and engaged in visioning sessions to imagine a better food future for San Francisco and the policy changes needed to make this future possible.
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Community Spotlight
Fernay McPherson
Fernay McPherson grew up in the Fillmore in the 80’s and 90’s. In 2024, Chef Fernay opened the second location of her critically acclaimed restaurant, Minnie Bell’s Soul Movement, right back here in the neighborhood. Booker T. partners with Chef Fernay to host events at the restaurant, like a dinner celebrating our youth scholarship recipients. Minnie Bell’s also provides culturally-relevant, fresh, hot, and nutritious meals for our youth and older adult program participants multiple times a week.
Learn about Our Program
