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A Year of Impact and Investment

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

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.


 

Group of participants standing in front of  Neideffer Fields, a new 4X4 soccer park behind the REACH Ashland Youth Center

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.


 

Mural covered Food Hub building

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.


 

A rainbow of colorful produce painted on the We Grow Medicine mural


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


 

Sunset Futsal Park at the Hayward Adult School


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 participants dancing beneath the oak trees

Muevete! dance & fitness classes for youth and adults

154 registered participants



Fitness classes for youth at REACH Ashland Youth Center

96 registered participants



Boxing youth at Hayward Adult School

Boxing classes for youth at Hayward Adult School 76 registered participants



Youth taking Boxing classes for youth at Camp Sweeny

Boxing classes for youth at Camp Sweeny juvenile residential detention facility 13 registered participants



Boxing coach overseeing youth participants

Boxing classes for adults at Hayward Adult School 253 registered participants


Youth having a great time wrestling

Wrestling program for youth at Hayward Adult School

60 registered participants




Participants at Golf Summer Camp

Free Summer Camps for youth throughout the community

194 registered participants



Youth playing Flag Football

Flag Football program for youth

184 registered participants



Sheriff's FC Boys Competitive Soccer League and their Coach

Sheriff's FC Boys Competitive Soccer League

209 registered participants



Sheriff's FC Girls Competitive Soccer League and their coach

Sheriff's FC Girls Competitive Soccer League

74 registered participants



DSAL's Free, Recreational Soccer Pickup League participants and their coach

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


Dig Deep Farms "Firehouse" urban farm growing in the sun

Food harvested at Dig Deep Farms "Firehouse" urban farm

22,378 lbs



Food being recovered and redistributed through Alameda County's Food Recovery


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

Food grown at Dig Deep Farms and provided to participants in Recipe4Health, the county's food-as-medicine prescription initiative

21,212 Rx deliveries



Fresh produce for the County's Recipe4Health initiative

Patients registered for County's Recipe4Health initiative

1,285 patients



The team at DSAL's weekly food drive

Households that participated in DSAL's weekly food drive

12,131 Households



Healthy groceries being picked up at DSAL's weekly food drive

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

The team at Yoyo Treats making food

Dig Deep Farms commercial kitchen tenants

73 Local food businesses

Creative Sips Small Business Entrepreneurs

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

On-the-job trainees at Dig Deep Farms Food Hub

46 Participants

On-the-job trainees hired into permanent, living wage jobs with benefits at Dig Deep Farms and The Food Hub

On-the-job trainees hired into permanent, living wage jobs with benefits at Dig Deep Farms and The Food Hub

8 Individuals Thank you for your participation and contributions to building up our community. See you next year!



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