By Robert J. Hansen | OBSERVER Staff Writer
A local nonprofit has opened a culinary youth kitchen to address food insecurity in North Sacramento after receiving a $100,000 city grant.
UniverSOUL Cafe opened the kitchen in what had been a vacant Del Paso Boulevard building referred to as “the Lot.” The kitchen will serve anyone in the community who is or is at risk of becoming food insecure.
Tonya Mack, founder of UniverSOUL Cafe, said the Measure U grant from the City of Sacramento will create jobs and save the planet.
“We lead with love,” Mack said. “That’s who we are, that’s what we do.”
Mack said UniverSOUL Cafe primarily reclaims surplus food, hires unhoused people, and works with and mentors youth in the community. UniverSOUL Cafe also employs the formerly incarcerated.
“That food that is untouched, that food sitting at a steam table somewhere in a restaurant … we grab all of that food and we give it to people who need it,” Mack said.
Several North Sacramento projects were awarded a total of $500,000 by the Measure U Committee’s Participatory Budgeting Pilot Program this year in the city’s effort to invest in underserved communities.
Assemblyman Kevin McCarty said anybody should be able to support programs that reduce recidivism rates by employing formerly incarcerated individuals.
“Once people get out and go home, back to their communities, 100% of us want to see people succeed,” said McCarty, who was a city councilmember when the Measure U community tax program was created.
Rabbi Dave Azen also was awarded a city grant and said that through his program, Fresher Futures, he hopes to provide food for those with CalFresh benefits and can use them for hot meals.
“In essence, grandparents can pay their grandchildren to make their meals,” Rabbi Azen said.
Mack said the grant empowers her nonprofit to hire 20 participants in the next 45 days. She added, though, that many nonprofits are stifled in the mere process of applying for grants.
“Because I’m a professional grant writer, for me the application was not difficult,” she said. “But others don’t have the experience or the bandwidth to write grants. Even when opportunities are opened up for them to participate in, they’re just not ready.”
Measure U sales tax now makes up just over $135 million of the $1.5 billion city budget. A 2018 vote raised Measure U from a half-cent to a full cent.
The Measure U spending pattern over the past four years, combined with other parts of the city budget, reflects Mayor Darrell Steinberg’s campaign pledge to reinvest in neighborhoods, the city said.
Other North Area grant recipients include:
- Neighborhood cleanup grants: $60,000 for community groups to fund cleanup events around Old North Sacramento, Gardenland and Del Paso Heights.
- A Second Chance Career Opportunity for the Youth: $200,000 for a three-month summer job/internship that provides work experience in a trade or computer skills for young adults ages 17-22.
- I Am ManPower Academy: $100,000 for UniverSOUL to offer classes, provide work experience and internships in the food ecosystem, and promote climate justice through the reclamation of surplus food, distribution of full meals and reduction of waste, with the goal of hiring and empowering individuals who are hard to employ, such as the unhoused and formerly incarcerated, and demonstrating different career paths within climate justice.
- Garden and farmers market: $140,000 to support a mobile farmers market program that offers affordable food, cooking classes and community education.