A side from dialing Veggie Rescue’s phone number, local growers don’t need to lift a finger to gift surplus food to community members in need of a helping hand.
Based in Santa Ynez, Veggie Rescue travels via box truck to multiple farms and businesses across Santa Barbara County for pickups of excess fruits and vegetables on a regular basis.
Within a 24-hour span of each pickup, the nonprofit delivers the produce it grabs to one or more of 50-plus organizations on the Veggie Rescue’s donation recipient list.
“Our primary goal is to reduce hunger through the food that we donate to nonprofits serving the food insecure,” said Eryn Shugart, Veggie Rescue’s executive director since April.
She originally joined the nonprofit as its development director in late 2024. But her introduction to Veggie Rescue was a few years prior, after inquiring about the group’s scope and reach, Shugart told the Sun over email.
“I learned about the organization when I was working with a physician in Lompoc to open what is now our county’s only free health clinic for the uninsured,” said Shugart, former executive director of Savie Health, established in 2022.
During her time with the Lompoc clinic, Shugart reached out to Veggie Rescue “about receiving food donations for some of our patients.”
A handful of Lompoc organizations are among Veggie Rescue’s current donation recipients, including the BridgeHouse Emergency Shelter and the Catholic Charities Food Pantry.
Santa Maria, Orcutt, Los Alamos, Guadalupe, Santa Barbara, and Goleta are among the other areas where Veggie Rescue regularly arranges food pickups and deliveries.
Local food producers can schedule weekly surplus pickups if there’s consistent excess or contact Veggie Rescue when unexpected surpluses occur.
Groups interested in becoming future recipients of food donations can fill out a form on Veggie Rescue’s website. The nonprofit accepts monetary and in-kind donations as well to support its operations.
When founder Terry Delaney launched Veggie Rescue in 2010, one of the first farms to sign up for surplus pickups was Folded Hills in Gaviota. In celebration of Veggie Rescue’s 15th anniversary in May, Folded Hills lent out its spacious ranch to the nonprofit for a festive fundraiser dinner.
The Gaviota venue also provided wine and food at the May 1 event, which raised more than $100,000 for Veggie Rescue, according to Shugart.
“About a third of the funds raised came from ticket sales,” she said. “Nearly half came from event sponsorship, and the remainder of the income was from paddle raise and live dessert auction donations.”
Some of the event’s lead sponsors included Solomon Hills Estate ($5,000), New Frontiers Natural Marketplace ($2,500), and the Allan Hancock College Foundation ($1,000).
While redistributing surpluses from local producers to groups across the county that host food drives or food service events for individuals and families in need, Veggie Rescue aims to alleviate issues tied to both hunger and environmental sustainability, Shugart explained.
“Most people don’t know that surplus food frequently winds up in landfills where it releases methane, which is a greenhouse gas,” said Shugart, who described one of Veggie Rescue’s tenets as “ensuring that fresh food feeds people, not landfills.”
In early June, Veggie Rescue added a staffer to its team through a newly created position. As Veggie Rescue’s first appointed program director, David Roberts will oversee the nonprofit’s expansion efforts to increase its list of partnering organizations.
This goal goes hand in hand with Veggie Rescue’s aim to help reduce Santa Barbara County’s cyclical poverty rate, Shugart explained.
“Poverty is a key driver of food insecurity, and food insecurity can deepen poverty,” she said. “[That] point gets to the heart of Veggie Rescue’s work.”
Highlight
• June 22 will mark the end of a local organizer’s Filipino immigration history exhibition after a 10-month run. On display in Santa Barbara’s Casa de la Guerra, the exhibit—titled Manongs on the Central Coast: Forming Communities Across Generations—includes photographs and other contributions from Lompoc native Bing Aradanas, a Filipino American who’s taught history courses at both UCSB and Cal Poly. Visit sbthp.org for more info.
Reach Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 19-29, 2025.
I make more then $19,000 a month online. Its enough to comfortably replace my old jobs income, especially considering I only work about 11 to 12 hours a week from home. I was amazed how easy it was after I tried it.HERE……… http://Www.JoinSalary.Com