ONE OC - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

MPNA-GREEN has recruited 10 promotoras who are from the community. These promotoras will identify the households that are food insecure as described above. The criteria for people to receive food vouchers includes: 1) Losing a job 2) Losing a family member due to COVID-19, and 3) Hospitalization due to covid-19. MPNA-GREEN will purchase food vouchers from Gonzales Market. These vouchers exclude the purchase of alcohol and tobacco. With this grant, promotoras will be able to provide $300 food vouchers (estimated monthly grocery costs for household) for over 100 families. This grant specifically will fund 448 households and be matched with other funding sources. When the promotoras interact with neighbors they will also be connecting them to local, state, and federal resources to meet other needs. This grant will support the food assistance program for 18 months between March 2021- May 2022. MPNA-GREEN staff will oversee the food assistance program and CEAL promotoras will implement the program by delivering vouchers. This program will leverage these promotoras as trusted messengers, making the food distribution voucher program unique by having and paying community residents to distribute the resources. Providing food assistance and other resources that meet people's basic needs (e.g., rental assistance) will also build trust of the promotoras which will strengthen their messaging and hopefully also have the added benefit of increasing vaccination rates. MPNA-GREEN has a vital and growing network of partners that have been critical to our accomplishments including previous food voucher distribution campaigns. Key partners include James Madison Elementary School (see letter of support), and Century High School. Other key partners include organizations with whom MPNA-GREEN formed the El Plan Del Pueblo Coalition. El Plan Del Pueblo Coalition is a group of organizations that is advocating and working with the City of Santa Ana government to ensure that the update to the city's general plan and subsequent element updates follow SB1000 and prioritize environmental justice. These organizations include Orange County Environmental Justice, The Kennedy Commission, Santa Ana Active Streets Coalition, El Centro Cultural de M6xico, Thrive Santa Ana Community Land Trust, Rise Up Willowick. These organizations are critical to our work and help leverage more resident engagement which is key to MPNA-GREEN'S mission and the goals of this grant to continue building community capacity. Because of our long-standing history in Santa Ana, we already have strong relationships based on past collaborations with these entities that are ready to be activated if we want to expand the scope geographically to the other environmental justice communities and topically.