Building a healthier community through good nutrition
The continuum of healthcare today goes well beyond an annual wellness check and vaccine updates. It includes exercise, work-life balance, mindfulness, and most important, a healthy diet, which is proven to help prevent and heal disease. Our priority is to fund innovative community collaborations and programs focused on good nutrition, including those delivering education about healthy eating and availability of healthy food for all. We are specifically interested in those programs serving low-income individuals and families who might not have access to healthy eating information and food options.
Addressing a Growing Community Health Crisis
The Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse (CADA) is the premier provider of education, prevention, and treatment of Substance Abuse Disorder (SUD) and co-occurring mental health conditions affecting youth, adults, and their families in Santa Barbara County. Its 24-hour live-in facility, Adult Residential Treatment Services (ARTS), provides local men and women with a continuum of safe and effective care to get them on a path of living a clean, sober, and productive lifestyle.
The current 12-bed capacity at ARTS is inadequate to serve a client waitlist that consistently approaches 50. Postponing entry into recovery can negatively impact its success, and CADA is committed to addressing this growing need. With local support, CADA is closer to its goal of expanding ARTS to up to 40 beds, which will have an immediate positive impact on the health of local men, women, and their families, and the vibrancy of the community we share.
“It’s common to think of substance abuse as a ‘street problem,’ but it’s an equal opportunity disease that also affects friends, coworkers, and family members we see every day. Regardless of education, occupation, wealth, or address, far too many Santa Barbara residents are losing their way, their livelihoods and even their lives. We are grateful to the Mosher Foundation for supporting CADA’s work to rebuild lives and families and build a healthier community for all to enjoy.” cadasb.org
- Scott Whiteley, Ph.D., CADA Executive Director
Trailblazing Education in Plant-Based Eating
Rooted Santa Barbara County is the first and only local organization specifically focused on plant-based nutrition education and preventive health. Under the oversight of Board Chair Beth Skidmore, the nonprofit
has created a robust Santa Barbara County voice for plant-based eating, including a bilingual platform for community education and dialogue with local healthcare providers.
“Funding from the Mosher Foundation is allowing us to build a hub of programs and partnerships that will provide much-needed food skills and nutrition education to local families,” said Beth. “Collaborating with healthcare providers, our goal is to empower community members to understand the relationship between good nutrition and good health and ensure accessibility to healthy food options for everyone.” rootedsantabarbara.org
Delivering Food Resources to Vulnerable Populations
Closing the gap on nutrition inequality in Santa Barbara County is the goal of the Foodbank’s Nutrition Resource Center. The multilingual, multicultural space is designed for community members to access the vast food and nutrition resources of the Foodbank and its many partners in a setting of equity, diversity, and inclusion. Its vision includes in-person and on-line food literacy programs, hands-on cooking classes, on-site gardening education, field trips, exhibits, and a Spanish-language cooking school.
The Foodbank has long been a critical community resource for those facing food insecurity. The collaborative work of the Nutrition Resource Center takes their positive impacts to the next level, and that’s to educate our community about the link between good nutrition and preventing and healing disease. foodbanksbc.org
Collaborating on Nutrition Intervention
The Santa Barbara Nutrition Health Coalition (SBNHC) is a collaboration of organizations committed to improving the health and wellbeing of the Santa Barbara community through good nutrition, particularly for low-income individuals and families. Each Coalition partner is focused on an aspect of healthy food and its correlation to disease prevention and treatment. Collaboration among these efforts maximizes positive community impact and eliminates unnecessary duplication in support of effective, evidence-based, and culturally sensitive nutrition intervention programs.
Coalition membership includes philanthropic foundations, nonprofit and direct service organizations, nutrition-based companies, academic institutions and research organizations, policy makers, and health care providers.
Current Coalition partners include:
- Cottage Center for Population Health
- Foodbank of Santa Barbara County
- Kate Farms
- Mosher Foundation
- Rooted Santa Barbara
- Sansum Diabetes Research Institute
- Santa Barbara County Food Action Network
- Santa Barbara Foundation
The SBNHC is an inclusive collaborative that seeks stakeholders committed to the development of evidence-based, culturally sensitive nutrition solutions to improve the health and health-equity of Santa Barbara County’s vulnerable populations. For more information about the Coalition’s work or to inquire about meeting with the group, please contact Beth Skidmore.