ALL IN Alameda County Responds to COVID-19
During the last several months, the harmful health and economic effects of the coronavirus pandemic have grown severe for the most vulnerable residents and families in Alameda County. ALL IN has been actively engaged in supporting its partners who are mobilizing to meet demand for basic needs and economic supports. We partnered with the Dig Deep Farms Food Hub the Dig Deep Farms Food Hub to establish a community food distribution site in San Leandro to serve unincorporated Alameda County. We are convening community based and grassroots organizations across the most impacted areas. We have continued with our Food as Medicine initiative at Tiburcio-Vasquez Health Center and recently launched at Native American Health Center. We continue to explore strategies to address immediate needs and strategies that support recovery and resilience.
If you are interested in learning more about our efforts or would like to partner, please do not hesitate to contact me at Larissa.Estes@acgov.org.
Special thanks to our supporters
Alameda County Supervisor Wilma Chan (District 3), Stupski Foundation, Hellman Foundation, Alameda Alliance for Health, McGovern Foundation
For more information on the coronavirus pandemic and supportive resources please visit the Alameda County Public Health Department website at www.acphd.org/2019-ncov.aspx. For more information on resources for food please visit the County of Alameda COVID-19 Food Distribution & Services map at www.acgov.org/maps/food-services.htm
We are committed. We are community. We are ALL IN.
Larissa J. Estes-White
Executive Director, ALL IN Alameda County
The staggering increase in poverty and inequality demands that we act now. Taking into account the cost of living, California has the highest poverty rate in the nation at 19.0% and the highest poverty rate among seniors. In Alameda County, more than half the children live in poverty in 15 neighborhoods and more than one-third live in poverty in another 36 neighborhoods.
To demonstrate this further, 30% of Alameda County residents fall under the Real Cost Measure, a tool created by United Way to estimate the income required to meet basic needs for a household in a given community. According to the RCM, a family of four in Alameda County needs a minimum of $105, 983 to meet those needs.
ALL IN Alameda County is a county-wide, multi-sector effort under the Alameda County Administrator’s Office focused on addressing the issues of poverty through collaboration and innovation. ALL IN receives its policy and programmatic direction from the ALL IN Steering Committee, a committee of the Alameda County Board of Supervisors.
Since 2015, ALL IN has raised over $5.1 million to implement strategies addressing issues of poverty. ALL IN actively collaborates with Community Members and Leaders, County Agencies, Industry and Sectors, and Community Based Organizations on issues such as food insecurity, community engagement and empowerment, workforce and economic development, school readiness, and ensuring children, youth, and families have adequate supports for equitable and sustained health and wellbeing.
ALL IN’s purpose is to eradicate poverty by promoting economic mobility and self-sufficiency among low-income populations.
ALL IN works within the guardrails of an accountability framework and the involvement of community stakeholders and County agency staff to create conditions within Alameda County that
ALL IN is currently addressing these goals through several initiatives: Food As Medicine, Food Recovery, Healthy Food Champions, and Neighborhoods Ready for Schools. These strategies leverage a neighborhood level approach to improve community wellbeing. In the coming years, it will also be supporting the programmatic efforts of ACGOV’s Enhancing Vision 2026 Fund to address the needs of children, youth, and families. ALL IN collaborates with fund recipients to ensure cumulative impact and identifying opportunities to encourage collaboration across the county.
The Healthy Food Healthy Families (HFHF) initiative seeks to reduce health inequities by making healthy food options more readily available in targeted communities. HFHF is currently working with community clinics, schools, and recreational centers and supporting the expansion of healthy retail in neighborhoods. Our Food as Medicine work seeks to connect patients at risk for chronic diseases with healthy foods and fresh produce through “prescriptions” that act as a preventative health measure. Our neighborhood strategies in the Fruitvale San Antonio neighborhoods seeks to develop community leaders to identify the best and most appropriate ways for individual communities to eat healthy. Running parallel to this initiative is our food recovery initiative, which seeks to promote workforce development and reduce food waste in schools and local farms by linking food producers with affordable housing sites. Through neighborhood level work, HFHF is looking to implement and sustain innovative programs that can leverage resources to shift the local multibillion-dollar food economy towards promoting job creation and food equity.
