SCUSD food distribution program serves 2,800 people. Volunteers hope to save it
Substantial cuts have yet to go into effect for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which is known as CalFresh in California.
But Joe Robustelli can see what might be coming.
Robustelli is food access director for nonprofit Alchemist Community Development Corporation, where he helps to oversee its Community Food Connections program at more than 40 sites in the Sacramento City Unified School District. Each month, this program, which has just one full-time staffer, serves about 2,800 people, generally students or their families.
The families are food insecure. Many are experiencing homelessness. And they don’t represent everyone that could be helped by the program, which operates without district funding and on a tight budget.
“This program is full right now,” Robustelli said. “As families lose their benefits, we can’t really expand and help.”
The program has been contending with the declining availability of grand funding and trying to figure out, with the help of volunteers, a path to sustainability.
Volunteers, Alchemist CDC staff and others attended an open house Thursday for the Community Food Connections program at its office behind the SCUSD enrollment center. Supporters have kicked off a year-long campaign to raise $250,000, which would be enough to fund the program for at least a year.
Lori Jablonski, a retired McClatchy High School teacher, said before the open house that about $75,000 had already been raised.
How the push to help Alchemist’s program got started
Last fall, about the time that Donald Trump’s presidential administration was attempting to halt SNAP payments, Saralyn Bienvenue took to Facebook to make a plea on behalf of the Community Food Connections program.
Bienvenue worked as a counselor for more than 20 years in SCUSD schools, including McClatchy High School and California Middle School. After she started working as the district’s community schools specialist, she became familiar with Alchemist CDC.
“They pour their heart and soul into their mission and their devotion to helping families across sites, regardless whether it is Crocker Riverside or it’s Fern Bacon,” Bienvenue said. “It’s not just restricted to community schools or a certain side of Sacramento, but it is any family that needs that connection.”
Her post caught Jablonski’s attention.
“I had never heard of anything like that,” Jablonski said. “I had no idea the district was doing anything like that. I talked to a few other folks, longtime district employees, teachers, that kind of thing. Nobody knew about it.”
The program traces its roots to the COVID-19 pandemic, when food distribution became disrupted. Food insecurity remains a significant issue for Sacramento-area students.
N’mah Bangura, a senior at Rosemont High School, said she had friends who were food insecure.
“A lot of people use lunch as their only way of getting food and I feel like the Alchemist program was a good opportunity for them to get food somewhere else,” said Bangura, who is a member of SCUSD’s Student Advisory Committee.
The issue of food insecurity became more pronounced following the July 2025 passage of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, which proposed slashing federal benefits. This included cuts to CalFresh that began the day the bill passed and are scheduled to keep being implemented on a rolling basis through October 2027, according to the California Budget & Policy Center.
County officials and local food banks were “bracing for record demand and asking residents for patience, compassion and understanding as long lines are likely to form at food distribution sites around the capital” when the federal government allowed full SNAP benefits to briefly lapse last fall.
Broader cuts could come next year, with the federal government set to reduce the amount it shares in SNAP costs with the state and county governments. The California Legislative Analyst’s Office noted that this could result “in about $2 billion in new annual costs.”
Alejandro Gomez, Community Food Connections program manager for Alchemist CDC, said service requests had increased by a lot since October. Gomez is Alchemist’s only full-time staffer for the program.
“We definitely will need to have more money to get one more person, a part-time person, to help out with this operation,” Gomez said. “Because it is true that it is supported by volunteers, but volunteers needs management as well.”
District support for the volunteer effort
Through going to meet with Bienvenue, volunteers got the idea to launch the fundraising campaign to help Alchemist CDC’s Community Food Connections program. Volunteer Dave Nagler said the campaign is called “Full Bellies Feed Learning.”
“That encapsulates what we’re trying to do,” Nagler said. “If kids aren’t hungry sitting in the classroom, they’ll pay better attention.”
The district’s ability to provide financial support to the Community Food Connections program is limited, with SCUSD facing the possibility of insolvency and state receivership.
Robustelli, Bienvenue and Alchemist CDC CEO Sam Greenlee initially hoped for funding from the district. “It quickly became apparent that the budget is such a mess, there’s no way that’s going to happen in the near future,” Robustelli said. “So it’s up to the community to fund this program.”
Robustelli said elected officials tend to be supportive of the program, though a champion hadn’t emerged yet.
Sacramento City Unified School District board members Taylor Kayatta, Chinua Rhodes and Jasjit Singh were present at Thursday’s open house.
Kayatta, who attended the open house at Jablonski’s invitation, said SCUSD had many students and families with high needs and that they couldn’t all be met.
“Programs like this, to the extent that we do have funding that we’re able to obtain that we can pass to them, that would be excellent, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel,” Kayatta said. “We have people doing amazing work already.”
To get involved
What: “Full Bellies Feed Learning” campaign
Who: Alchemist CDC Community Food Connections program
Fundraising goal: $250,000
To donate: alchemistcdc.org/scusd
