Turkey Drive: New farm to table work programs providing healthy food and job training for Good Samaritan clients
SANTA MARIA, Calif. - A pair of new Good Samaritan Shelter programs is providing a double-win for clients with non-profit organization, farm fresh produce, as well as valuable work training opportunities.
The two new programs are allowing Good Samaritan to produce much of its own food, from farm to table, starting at its Lompoc farm, while ending at many of its shelter dining rooms.
The freshly grown produce first sprouts to life at Good Samaritan's three-acre farm located in the fields adjacent to its Lompoc Bridgehouse Shelter.
"Our homeless clients help tend the crops, plant the crops, pick the crops for distribution to over 800 beds throughout the county that are under Good Samaritan's leadership," said Jeff Hendrickson, Good Samaritan Farm Manager. "They're learning life skills, showing up every day. It's just like a job for them four days a week to show up and put in time. They also get the advantage of knowing that their work they're doing is helping feed other, clients in a similar situation to themselves."
Once the produce is harvested, it is transported to Good Samaritan facilities, including its main kitchen on its Santa Maria campus.
"Once the produce comes in, we start processing," said Michael Albright, Good Samaritan Culinary General Manager. "Our rule of thumb is every dish that we produce must have at least three ingredients from the farm. Right now we got fennel, tomato, carrots, cabbage, all sorts of things that we put together and ship it out."
Similar to the Good Samaritan farm work program, there is now also a culinary program clients are able to enroll in.
"Our clients are eligible to sign up for a ten week culinary program that covers all the basics," said Albright. "From food safety, nutrition, knife skills, people skills. It's very technique driven, so they're, kind of put through it for four hours a day, four days a week. They seem to really enjoy it. I enjoy having them here. It takes a lot of pressure off what we're doing, and we're doing 500 meals a day every day."
Both programs are providing Good Samaritan clients with real-world, marketable experience that allows them to pursue employment opportunities within the community.
"We've had numerous success stories of people moving on from my program here at the farm, and getting jobs," said Hendrickson. "While we miss their help, that is the ultimate goal."
While giving its clients work experience is a significant focus of the two programs, so too is the ability for the non-profit organization to grow and provide much of the food it serves on a daily basis.
"It's amazing," said Kirsten Cahoon, Good Samaritan Director of Shelter Operations. "We've always seen a huge number of our homeless population struggle with diabetes and other health issues that are related to diet, so being able to provide not only work training programs for our clients, but being able to give them farm to table produce and healthy meals is such a game changer in the homeless community."
Good Samaritan, along with SLO Food Bank, are the two beneficiaries of the ongoing News Channel 12 Turkey Drive.
Turkeys and monetary donations collected in Santa Barbara County will remain there and benefit Good Samaritan clients, while those collected in San Luis Obispo County will help out SLO Food Bank clients.
In regards to Thanksgiving, a lot of the stuff we grow here will go into various dishes, along with all the donated turkeys," said Hendrickson. "We have fennel, which will be wonderful and a good stuffing and green beans. We have a plethora of green beans planted just for that purpose, to make sure that they have fresh green beans on their plate on Thanksgiving Day."
The News Channel 12 Turkey Drive is set for Thursday, November 21, with all proceeds benefiting thousands of clients with Good Samaritan Shelter in Santa Barbara County and SLO Food Bank in San Luis Obispo County.
For more information, or to donate, visit the News Channel 12 Turkey Drive webpage.
