The Anchors in Resilient Communities (ARC) collaborative was founded in 2013 to figure out how Bay Area anchor institutions like hospitals could aggregate their purchasing power to transform the health, wealth and climate resilience of the East Bay. Over the years, that work evolved to address challenges presented by large-scale food procurement.
And that process now has a home: the Union City Culinary Center, which opened this January about 20 miles south of Oakland.
The center is a large-scale food production facility vendors supply raw ingredients, and the facility produces up to 50,000 meals daily for distribution to hospitals, schools, universities and retail customers throughout Northern California. It’s the result of years of collaboration between ARC, the center’s owner and operator FoodService Partners, and anchor institution Kaiser Permanente, which has a goal to purchase 100 percent sustainable and local food by 2025.
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Exploring new cultures will not only provide valuable experiences but will also dispel our unconscious preconceptions about people and foster an open mind.
When Steve Slocum and his family lived in Kazakhstan for five years, they learned the Kazakh language and allowed themselves to be absorbed into a hospitable culture.
“The culture was a fascinating mixture of Islam and indigenous customs. It didn’t take us long to fall in love with the Kazakh people,” Slocum said.
Though he and his family went as missionaries, “as I unconsciously and consciously compared my culture, and the outworking of the Christian faith in it, to the culture of the Kazakh people, seeds were planted for new ways of thinking,” said Slocum, who now lives in Pacific Beach.