MEALS SERVED:
OVER 2,000,000
INDIVIDUALS SERVED AT NEIGHBORS UNITE MARKET:
OVER 100,000
RECIRCULATED INTO OUR LOCAL ECONOMY:
OVER $30,000,000
Rogue Food Unites (RFU)
Rogue Food Unites (RFU) uses food to heal individuals and communities during times of crisis.
RFU coordinates with locally-invested food businesses to provide fresh, nutritious, and shelf-stable ingredients, assembled and delivered to our communities.
While meeting the fundamental human right for food, RFU strengthens local economies: fostering collaboration, preserving jobs for residents, building resilience, and ensuring food security and sovereignty in Oregon.
RFU was formed in 2020 out of the dual disasters of the Almeda and Obenchain fires and the impacts of COVID-19 on local communities.
Within a short time, RFU began contracting with the State of Oregon to supply hot meals, food boxes, and solidarity cards in Deschutes, Douglas, Klamath, Josephine, and Jackson Counties.
RFU has provided more than 2,000,000 meals to displaced and impacted people, including 600,700 hot meals served at recovery sites and delivered to hotels, RV parks and temporary homes and, 38,756 meal kits and provision boxes. We also have provided fresh produce to more than 100,000 individuals.
Through our partnerships with regional restaurants, farms, vendors, and stores, we have recirculated nearly $30 million into our local economies since September 2020.
Since the early days of these disasters, Rogue Food Unites has provided rapid response to the emergency food needs of evacuees and those who lost their homes. This work continues as people move through the complex stages of recovery.
Our evolving goal is to provide stable support extending beyond the immediate recovery process to meet the growing and persistent food insecurity affecting our communities, through strategic partnerships and collaborative service delivery.
RFU has excelled in creating a distribution system that can evolve and expand in a short period of time, and has continued to modify as the evolution of recovery has changed.
RFU helps those who have been most affected - our community members who are elderly, unhoused, economically insecure, including those with underlying health issues, with particular care for culturally specific needs.
RFU regularly serves people freely, no questions asked, to receive provisions to feed themselves and their family members. RFU does not require any paperwork, ID, proof of loss or impact, or any other documentation to receive food supplies. RFU serves foods that provide comfort as well as nutrition.
Photos by: Alisha Jucevic / Amanda Lucier / Joe Kline