Dancing, playing, wrestling, painting, farming, cooking, and investing!
These are just a few of the words that describe our activities in 2022 as we worked together with the Sheriff’s Office to improve the health and wellbeing of the community through Community Capitals Policing.
We are deeply grateful to our staff, volunteers, partners, funders, Sheriffs’ Deputies, and everyone who supported us and cheered us on in 2022. We couldn’t do it without you!
This includes some highlights of our work in 2022.
Grand opening of the 90-acre expansion of Dig Deep Farms at Ardenwood Historic Farm
The Dig Deep Farms expansion will allow us to support our community in numerous ways including:
- Grow more fresh produce for the County’s Recipe4Health, food-as-medicine program,
- Create dozens of quality jobs and training opportunities for local residents as well as justice-involved individuals,
- Practice and teach permaculture farming techniques that improve the health of residents,
- Improve the quality of our soil, and
- Fend off climate change.
Launch of Neideffer Fields, a new 4X4 soccer park behind the REACH Ashland Youth Center
During the pandemic, the area behind REACH was taken over at night by people drinking and tagging walls with graffiti. Instead of making arrests, Sheriff’s Deputy (now Sergeant) Daniel Murphy reached out to county officials and the San Lorenzo Unified School District to increase the safety of the space, which led to the creation of a new, free-to-play, 4X4 soccer park for DSAL’s recreational soccer program.
Expansion of the Dig Deep Farms Food Hub ecosystem
The Dig Deep Farms Food Hub has become an instrumental piece of infrastructure that:
- Supports the County’s food recovery effort,
- Serves as the distribution hub for Recipe4Health food-as-medicine prescriptions, and
- Provides local entrepreneurs with affordable commercial kitchen space to launch or expand their businesses. This support allows them to create jobs and contribute to the ALL IN Eats, local circular food economy. Now, in order to support an even broader impact, we have received funding to build new Food Hubs in East Oakland, Hayward, and Newark, with others planned for Livermore and other parts of Oakland.
Unveiling of the “We Grow Medicine” mural at the Dig Deep Farms Food Hub
DSAL and the Sheriff's Office partnered with Blue Shield of California, ALL IN Eats, and Recipe4Health to create a new mural. We Grow Medicine celebrates community health, wellbeing, and the importance of fresh, local, sustainably grown food-as-medicine, that improves public health and safety.
At the unveiling, we previewed the preliminary results from the County’s food-as-medicine initiative that is:
- Reducing food insecurity, isolation, and depression;
- Decreasing reported incidents of physical and mental health illness;
- Increasing weekly exercise; and
- Positively addressing a range of social determinants of health.
- Advancing policy change to enable food to be a covered benefit under MediCal
Construction of Sunset Futsal Park at the Hayward Adult School
DSAL and the Sheriff’s Office are excitedly awaiting the completion of a $2.5 million futsal park at the Hayward Adult School in partnership with the Hayward Unified School District, Hayward Area Recreation and Park District, and the Valley Foundation.
The Sunset Futsal Park is the outcome of a community-driven process to transform unused space into a futsal court to ease the shortage of park and sports fields in the area.
The state-of-the-art facility will provide youth and their families with opportunities to engage in healthy activities and instill a sense of pride and empowerment that comes along with having quality facilities and winning teams.
Health and fitness activities provided by DSAL and the Sheriff's Office
Muevete! dance & fitness classes for youth and adults
154 registered participants
Fitness classes for youth at REACH Ashland Youth Center
96 registered participants
Boxing classes for youth at Hayward Adult School 76 registered participants
Boxing classes for youth at Camp Sweeny juvenile residential detention facility 13 registered participants
Boxing classes for adults at Hayward Adult School 253 registered participants
Wrestling program for youth at Hayward Adult School
60 registered participants
Free Summer Camps for youth throughout the community
194 registered participants
Flag Football program for youth
184 registered participants
Sheriff's FC Boys Competitive Soccer League
209 registered participants
Sheriff's FC Girls Competitive Soccer League
74 registered participants
DSAL's Free, Recreational Soccer Pickup League
877 registered participants
Food grown, Recovered & redistributed, and Fresh Food-As-Medicine produce prescriptions filled at Dig Deep Farms
Food harvested at Dig Deep Farms "Firehouse" urban farm
22,378 lbs
Food recovered and redistributed through Alameda County's Food Recovery initiative
670,384 lbs
Food grown at Dig Deep Farms and provided to participants in Recipe4Health, the county's food-as-medicine prescription initiative
21,212 Rx deliveries
Patients registered for County's Recipe4Health initiative
1,285 patients
Households that participated in DSAL's weekly food drive
12,131 Households
Healthy groceries picked up at DSAL's weekly food drive
16,704 bags
Small, local food vendors leasing space in DSAL's commercial kitchen at Dig Deep Farms
Dig Deep Farms commercial kitchen tenants
73 Local food businesses
Mobile Small Business Entrepreneurs
18 Mobile food vendors
Justice-involved youth and adults receiving on-the-job (OJT) training at Dig Deep Farms; and OJT trainees who received full-time jobs
On-the-job trainees at Dig Deep Farms Food Hub
46 Participants
