Seven organizations and one city in Los Angeles County, along with one recipient in Orange County, received funds totaling more than $2.6 million Monday from the California Department of Resources Recycling and Recovery under its new Food Waste Prevention and Rescue Grant Program.
The program is part of California’s strategy to combat climate change, and the Southland recipients were among 31 projects in the state that received more than $9.4 million from CalRecycle.
The goal of the program is decreasing the estimated six million tons of food waste that ends up in landfills in California each year, and increasing the state’s capacity to deliver food to the roughly one in eight Californians who are food insecure.
“Bolstering California’s food recovery infrastructure will help feed communities in need, create new jobs, and result in significant greenhouse gas reductions,” CalRecycle Director Scott Smithline said. “Our hope is that these programs will inspire similar efforts throughout California.”
The Orange County recipient is the Waste Not OC Coalition, which received $500,000.
The L.A. County grant recipients are:
— Food Finders Inc., $100,000;
— Food Forward, $500,000;
— Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, $386,960;
— St. Francis Center, $100,000;
— The Midnight Mission, $100,000;
— City of Culver City, $497,144;
— Los Angeles Conservation Corps, $375,206; and
— Strong Food/L.A. Kitchen Inc., $389,387.
–City News Service