The Food Initiative of Greater Stanislaus

EDIT: the shop can’t get our truck in until Monday, which means we have to cancel Saturday’s mobile pantry as well. We will update if there are any changes to next week’s schedule.

Urgent update: the mobile pantry truck has a broken lift gate, and today’s mobile pantry is cancelled. Pay attention to this space or text “MOBILE” to (209)309-1705 to receive text updates about the mobile schedule. We are sorry for the inconvenience!!

Check out our mobile schedule for this week! Don’t forget, you can drop donations here too.

Where to even begin?!
This past weekend, a huge pallet fire right next to our warehouse took out more than one business, and threatened our warehouse along with our vehicles, equipment and several tons of food. The impact on the county if we had lost our warehouse, along with the other non-profits in our building, would have been catastrophic. We truly cannot thank these folks enough for the risks they take to protect life and property.
There are still heroes.
Thanks to , , , , Fire District, San Joaquin County Strike Team personnel, Stanislaus Regional Fire Investigation Unit, , , , PG&E, , Public Works and many others!
We also want to extend our heartfelt gratitude to The Love Center for allowing us to move our cooler and freezer items to your space when we had to get stuff out in a hurry. That was TRULY a blessing.
While we incurred few losses and some temporary increase in labor costs, this could have been SO much worse and we are so grateful. If you would like to donate to help offset those expenses, you can either visit www.foodinitiative.org/donate or mail your check to:
FIGS, 210 S. Sierra, Suite 206, Oakdale, CA 95361.
And please, join us in thanking these heroes!
P.S. There will be no interruption to our services.

We are so thankful to the Modesto Fire Department and all the other agencies who offered mutual aid for protecting our warehouse and others last night during this horrific fire. (We will say more when we know more!) We spent the night not knowing if we would wake up to any warehouse remaining.

We are relocating our refrigerator and freezer items because we are without power, and we will update about services on Monday, but we should be able to continue with minimal interruption for our clients.

Thank you for your prayers! If you’d like to help offset the costs of temporarily relocating and any food we might have lost due to power outage (we will know more soon), you can visit www.foodinitiative.org/donate or send a check to our admin office at 210 S. Sierra, Suite 206, Oakdale, CA 95361.

We are so sorry for the businesses impacted more seriously, especially Perez Pallets.

Mobile stops for this week!

This week’s mobile schedule. Remember you can check the FULL schedule at foodinitiative.org/schedule.

This is for July, pardon the typo.

Mobile stops for this week! Don’t forget, you can also drop donations off at these stops. You can always check the mobile schedule at www.foodinitiative.org/schedule. Text the word MOBILE to (209)309-1705 to sign up for mobile schedule updates and changes.

Please note a few changes to our schedule for the holiday week. Stay safe and cool!!

Check out our mobile schedule for the week, and don’t forget you can also drop off donations at these stops! You can always check our schedule at www.foodinitiative.org/schedule.

This week’s mobile schedule! Remember three things:
1. Every distribution stop is also a place you can drop donations of food or clothes!
2. You can always check the schedule at www.foodinitiative.org/schedule.
3. Text the word MOBILE to (209)309-1705 to get text updates about the mobile schedule.

Oops! It’s not our pretty calendar but we missed the design window and didn’t want to miss sharing!
You can ALWAYS find our schedule at foodinitiative.org/schedule.

We had such a great time at the Oakdale Morning Market! Oakdale has made us feel so welcome since it has become part of our mobile pantry route.

Never miss a (corrected) schedule! lol. You can text the word MOBILE to (209)309-1705 to receive mobile program schedule updates, and you can always find the full calendar at foodintiative.org/schedule.

Come see us at the and get your free sticker or screen-printed tote with a donation of $30 or more today only! (Will be available for purchase in the future!)

If you’ve received our mailed appeal, please be aware that we had a database glitch that caused many names and addresses to be confused.

Rest assured that this only impacted this printing and not our database on the whole, and that we have your correct info. No further action needs to be taken, and every household or address who receives one was intended to (they just might have an incorrect name).

Thanks for understanding! We apologize for the confusion.

Come on out to the Oakdale Morning Market this Saturday where we will have an info booth, and will be selling stickers and cute screen-printed totes to support our programs!

💐🎉 Join us this Mother's Day at the Oakdale Morning Market to celebrate the incredible women in our lives - whether you're a mom, have a mom, or cherish a woman who's like a mom… It's a day for all the special ladies who inspire us daily!

Please note the craft is limited to the first 100 kiddos!
___ 🍓🧀🍏🍞🌶🥯🥬🧄🥑🌽 ___

The Morning Market is held each Saturday morning, May-Sept, from 8-11 am on North 3rd Avenue in Oakdale, CA. The Oakdale Morning Market is a project of Love Oakdale ❤ Thank you for your support!

This week’s schedule! Text the word MOBILE to (209)309-1705 to receive text updates, and you can check out our full calendar at www.foodinitiative.org/schedule

It’s finally happening! Tomorrow we will have volunteers out building Little Free Food Pantries at and , and we have a couple other ways to get involved with this new program.
First, we are creating a network and registry, but you don’t have to use one of ours. You can find plans to build your own or repurpose a cabinet, mailbox, etc—just like the Little Free Library concept. But whether you want to provide your own or need one of these, please fill out the form to show your interest!
Second, we are looking for sponsors to help cover the cost of these rather expensive but amazing little units, so that we can provide them to folks in Stanislaus County who want to host.
There are three separate ways to sponsor, whether you want to support Oakdale, Modesto, or anywhere in Stanislaus County. (If we have an effort to build some in another specific town, we will create additional sponsorships, but if you don’t care which city you find, please choose Stanislaus!).
Allllllll of this will be available from here https://linktr.ee/thefoodinitiative or you can click the link in our bio to navigate to the form or the sponsorship page (the button says Sponsor or Donate).
We are so excited for tomorrow!!!!

Check out the mobile schedule for another great week!

This week’s mobile schedule is packed! Text the word “Mobile” to (209)309-1705 to receive updates on mobile stops, or you can visit our website at www.foodinitiative.org/schedule to view the full calendar.

Important update about the mobile pantry for today, April 11 and tomorrow April 12:
We were just informed that the mobile host site for today and tomorrow is resurfacing the asphalt and we aren’t able to use the usual location. We are looking for an alternate but for now, the mobile distribution is cancelled. We will let you know as SOON as we have an update.

It's time to sign up for your Love Modesto projects!

Our project (building little free food pantries) is full, but there are SO many amazing projects that still need volunteers. Check them out at here: https://lovemodesto.com/Volunteer #

This volunteer event is on April 27th and there are still over a hundred projects to choose from for all ages and abilities, a pancake breakfast, $500 giveaway and SO much more.

What project will YOU be doing?

Love Modesto Join me April 27th for a chance to Love on Modesto!

Here are the stops for the week! Note the clothes closet this Friday. See you there, on one of these nice sunny days. 🌞🌞 (switched the image since someone so nicely caught that the calendar said March!)

Friends, here’s the schedule for the rest of this week for mobile distribution AND donation drop off points!
We have had issues the last couple weeks with the platform we use to schedule the sharing of this information, and apologize for the delay. We THINK the issue is fixed. Thank you for your patience!
Remember you can ALWAYS check our schedule at www.foodinitiative.org/schedule!

We are sorry, we just realized that our calendar for this week didn’t send out or post!

Don’t forget you can check our schedule any time at www.foodinitiative.org/schedule.

Here is the mobile schedule this week, plus a couple reminders:
-these mobile distribution stops are also donation drop off points! You can take your donations of food or clothing to any of these locations at these dates and times
-you can sign up to get updates on the schedule by texting the word MOBILE to (209)309-1705
-you can check out the full schedule on our website at www.foodinitiative.org/schedule.

Please share!!

Here the mobile schedule for this week! You can check out the full schedule, as always, at foodinitiative.org/schedule or text the word MOBILE to (209)309-1705 to receive updates!

Edit: we just saw the “29st”. Oops! 😂🤣😅 Oh well, leaving it.

Folks! A couple years ago, we planned a farm-to-table event that had to be cancelled, but now we think it’s finally safe to try again! Unfortunately, the original location is no longer available.

I’m looking for a venue or private residence that could accommodate 60-70 guests (max) in a garden-like or farm-like, beautiful setting.

Location is flexible! Stanislaus County or nearby (Escalon and Ripon would also be ok!)

Of course, free (donated) is amazing but we have a small budget for the venue if needed. The timeline is early summer, before it gets too hot, or else some time in late September or October when it starts to cool off in the evenings. The specific date is very flexible.

I’d love to hear your suggestions, and feel free to share! Also, if you bought tickets or sponsored, we still have that for you. Thank you for your help!