Sonoma Family Meal Takes Off After the Sonoma Fires

It has been almost two weeks since the early morning wake up call that a fire was headed to the city of Santa Rosa (and Sonoma and Napa as well). Two weeks of staying indoors to keep Ryeson away from smoke, and two weeks of having all our most precious belongings packed in the car, mandatory evacuations for my mom (who at the time of this post is allowed back home but still has no gas). 

In addition to all the devastation, we have witnessed, there has been an outpour of support and love for this community.

One of those stories comes from Heather Irwin, THE Sonoma County food writer of Sonoma Magazine's BiteClubEats. From the moment I scrolled through Facebook to find information on the fire, I saw her posts about what was happening - specifically the restaurants and food news of the fire. Her family ended up being evacuated and everyone was scared and not really wanted to cook for a large tribe. That experience made her realize that while most of the volunteers, food trucks, and celebrity chefs (cough, Guy Fieri) were helping those who evacuated to shelters - that not many were helping everyone else. 

People like my mom who had no power or gas and ate peanut butter sandwiches. Or people who had to take PTO to take care of their kids for the last two weeks because school was out... Or anyone who needed a warm meal.

So Sonoma Family Meal was created. Hundreds of chefs and volunteers have been serving healthy meals to many people in need every single day. Over 24,000 meals have been served, and they are not stopping anytime soon. They are taking this idea and continuing with it...:  https://www.gofundme.com/sonomafamilymeal for more details on how they are continuing to feed anyone affected by the fires.

Here are some images I took for their new website.