The Redwood Empire Food Bank has been serving Sonoma County since 1987. We were founded as a result of the first local hunger survey that was conducted by University of California Cooperative Extension-Sonoma County in 1986. In response to the findings, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors appointed a Blue Ribbon Task Force on Hunger. The Task Force recommended the creation of a food bank that would function as a central clearinghouse for the collection and distribution of donated food in Sonoma County. Feeding America (formerly America's Second Harvest), the national network of food banks, accredited the REFB in 1992.

The mission of the REFB is to end hunger in our community. Over the last 23 years, the REFB's service has grown to meet the rising need for food assistance and expanded to focus on providing as much healthy food as possible and to including nutrition education as an integral part of many of our programs.

We currently assist over 70,000 Sonoma County residents every month. We provide food through our own hunger initiatives that focus on the unmet needs of low-income children, seniors, and working families. We also are a primary source of food for a network of 146 community based charitable organizations that operate 230 human service programs helping the needy, disabled and homeless in Sonoma County. See Timeline Below