The Food Equity Fund (FEF), managed by the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods (DON), supports projects that address food insecurity and promote health and wellbeing across Seattle’s neighborhoods. In 2025, the FEF Starter Fund awarded a total of $275,000 to 11 diverse community organizations dedicated to improving access to nutritious, culturally relevant food.
The Starter Fund prioritizes community organizations and groups with an annual budget of less than $500,000, with the intention of providing a nimble grant to smaller, grassroots organizations advancing an equitable and sustainable local food system who historically had limited access to institutional funding. The process consists of a simple written application and a virtual interview.
The 2025 community organizations received grants of $25,000 for a range of initiatives, including culturally relevant food distribution, fresh cooked meals, nutrition education programs, and traditional food, medicine, resource, and ecology seminars.
Since its inception, the Food Equity Fund has been a cornerstone of Seattle’s efforts to address food insecurity, guided by recommendations from the community and supported by the Sweetened Beverage Tax. The fund expands opportunities for collaboration and innovation in food justice.
“Choose to Win is helping to solve the world’s problems one meal at a time. For our unhoused neighbors and the elders in our community, stretching a fixed income further than it was ever meant to go, that meal is more than food. It is a reminder that their community has not forgotten them.” – Choose to Win, 2025 Starter Fund Awardee
“We appreciate and are thankful for the support that the Food Equity Fund has given to the Pacific Islander community”. – Friendly Islands of Tonga Seniors, Youth and Family Services, 2025 Starter Fund Awardee
2025 Starter Fund Awardees
$25,000 to Hand and Hand Community Development to provide and deliver approximately 800 meals per month to homebound seniors and unhoused population in Seattle and provide about 40 food bags to low-income seniors residing in Rainier Valley and Rainier Beach neighborhoods.
$25,000 to Duwamish Valley Sustainability Association (DVSA) to operate the community-owned biodigester and distribute probiotic plant food to community farms. We will be collecting community waste and treating it as a resource that can be refined and turned into plant food. This will aid in the growth of local farms and provide value back to the community that produced the waste. In addition to operating the biodigester, we will train two youths in monitoring the probiotic plant food’s efficacy and learn about circular food systems in South Park.
$25,000 to Somos Mujeres Latinas for the health and well-being of Latina women through a culturally grounded approach that integrates ancestral nutrition and community-based support. The program will offer hands-on food preparation workshops and individualized food coaching sessions to promote sustainable holistic health practices. By indigenizing nutrition and fostering culturally relevant wellness strategies, the project seeks to advance food equity and long-term health outcomes within the Latina community.
$25,000 to Friendly Islands of Tonga Seniors, Youth and Family Services to provide five (5) monthly distributions of culturally relevant groceries such as taro, coconut milk, green bananas, fish and meats, to approximately 50-70 Tongans, Fijians, Samoans and other Pacific Islander families. All grocery distribution events will be planned and led by the Polynesian community and held at the Seaview United Methodist Church located at 4620 SW Graham Street in Seattle.
$25,000 to Iu-Mien American Association to build on their successful food pantry and launch a weekly culturally relevant soup kitchen for 4 months serving up to 40 Southeast Asian low-income seniors and their families at their community center in South Seattle.
$25,000 to Immigrants Seniors and Youth United – to sustain its Nafaqo program, a vital resource for low-income East African refugee and immigrant seniors in Seattle. Designed to combat social isolation and war-related trauma, the program provides a supportive community space for seniors and their families. Specifically, the fund will support them in offering weekly hot, nutritious, Halal meals to approximately 60 participants for 5 months and will fund six educational workshops focused on nutrition and food security for 15 immigrant seniors over a 6-month period.
$25,000 to Marvin Thomas Memorial to shop and deliver nutritious grocery food items and produce to 20 low-income families each month for a six- month period to mitigate negative health outcomes in under resourced populations in Seattle. MTM will work with farmers, local community organizations, school food drives, food banks to add additional items to each grocery bag.
$25,000 to Experience Education to develop and implement a 10-weeks Indigenous Food Camp Pilot educational program for a 10-person cohort group of BIPOC artists and cultural workers. The goal of the educational program is to help members to explore and develop their own cultural and heathy local food system that teaches them how to affordably, reasonably and regularly prepare and cook food for themselves. All cohort sessions will be held in Seattle. And sessions will be recorded, edited and shared with the community at large via social media. A digital recipe book will also be developed and shared. At the end of the program, the cohort group will utilize the food knowledge and skills that they have learned to organize and provide a free community meal event at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle.
$25,000 to African Diaspora Education and Cultural Marketplace to alleviate food inequity in the Southeast Seattle and Central District area through our Mobile Food Pantry. We will operate twice per month, in public parks located in the Central District, Downtown, and South Seattle, providing free food bags with a combination of nutritious non-perishable and perishable food items for individuals and families in need. We will also provide monthly juicing and nutrition classes at John Muir Elementary at their after-school program.
$25,000 to Choose to Win for two youth-led food distribution projects in Rainer Beach and Downtown for 5 months and our mentees will volunteer at a local urban farm for 2 months. Our youth mentorship participants will learn the significance of food equity through monthly community service initiatives and engaging activities focused on food systems, sustainability, gardening, and giving back to their community.
$25,000 to Made Space Seattle for organizing a free monthly pop-up, Central District Community Co-Op dedicated to increasing food sustainability and access to fresh, nutrient dense and culturally relevant foods for communities of color as well as strengthen the network of BIPOC led agricultural workers. Made Space will host three monthly food distribution days and paired with opportunities for networking and education. Through culturally responsive outreach and local farmer partnerships, we aim to reduce food insecurity and promote wellness while strengthening local food networks.
