Comida Para La Gente Food Security Program
“The Sanctuary Movement’s food program put food on my family’s table during the pandemic, while my husband was detained. We appreciate it a lot”
Columbia County Sanctuary Movement’s Comida para la Gente Food Justice program disrupts the food waste system, providing nutritious, culturally appropriate meals and groceries to immigrants across the region and low-income communities within the Hudson, NY ecosystem.
BIPOC and immigrant farm workers are growing, preparing, delivering, and serving food that they themselves, their families, and their communities are denied access to. This power imbalance was exacerbated by a pandemic that exposed existing racial, health, and wealth inequalities. CCSM is responding with powerful programming such as community organizing and meaningful mutual aid, including Comida Para La Gente (Food For The People), which has distributed over 425,000 pounds of food to date. We are the largest mutual aid food distributor in our region outside of the Regional Foodbank, with staff certified in safe food handling. CCSM is creating a more just food system to advance the health and social equity of our community
Our team gleans from local farms and farmer’s markets to ensure our community within a 4-hour radius of Hudson, NY, receives prepared free, fresh, and culturally relevant meals per week. An additional 4-5k pounds of groceries are distributed each week to low-income BIPOC residents and to our four community fridges in partnership with local immigrant-led churches.
Our food distribution days entail sourcing and preparing groceries, livestock like chickens, as well as seedlings for members of our community to grow their own food. Our partnerships with local farms enable us to provide locally grown, organic, and culturally relevant products such as indigenous varieties of corn, beans, epazote, tomatillos, and cilantro to our community.
A typical week:
Monday - Deliver fresh produce and meals to serve undocumented immigrants in food apartheid South Bronx with La Morada
Tuesday - Local meal and grocery deliveries to Bliss Towers, Providence Hall Pantry, Free Community Fridges, and more
Wednesday - We partner with local farms to support farming culturally relevant produce
Thursday- We volunteer with Columbia County Recovery Kitchen to cook and deliver hot meals to the homes of CCSM community members
Friday - We host a grocery day, called “El Mercadito” at Centro Cristiano Renacer Church in Hudson; This day, depending on the time of year and availability, includes seedlings to grow your own vegetables, poultry and other meats, and clothing. We receive produce from Sweet Freedom Farm, Long Table Harvest, Roxbury Farm, Wally Farms, and chickens from Shaker Creen Farm in partnership with Berkshire Grown.
Saturday/Sunday - We glean from farmer's markets to make sure no food goes to waste.
To sign up to receive food deliveries, email sanctuarycolumbiacounty@gmail.com or call (518) 303-3848.
To sign up to volunteer as a driver, fill out our volunteer interest form!
“The food program has helped me out a lot financially. I like having fresh food like vegetables. I like the days that I can pick up my food myself so I can choose what I like and refuse what I know I will not eat so food won’t go to waste.“
