Chefs, volunteers cooking up goodwill in Sonoma

Under the radar, there’s plenty of goodwill going on in the town of Sonoma.

About 10 chefs, who choose to remain anonymous, are helping a group of volunteers with delicious leftovers that range from tri-tip to Ethiopian Chicken Stew to Chicken Curry.

This is according to 80-year old Elizabeth Kemp, one of the founders of the Brown Baggers, a group of volunteers who serve the hungry who live among the prosperous in Wine Country.

“A chef may have a catering job and instead of dumping what they don’t need, they’ll bring it by,” Kemp said. “Really what we’re about is trying to be a little fairer in an unfair world.”

The food from chefs winds up in a variety of places in which the Brown Baggers play a role. A tri-tip might supplement one of the regular hot dinners at La Luz cultural support center in Boyes Hot Springs, while turkey stock might find its way into one of the weekly Wednesday lunches at the Sonoma Valley Grange. A pasta dish might be offered to one of the local churches on duty within the rotating severe-weather shelter program. Meanwhile a pork roast might be used in making burritos that are distributed throughout Sonoma Valley, including the Haven, Sonoma’s emergency overnight shelter.

The Brown Bag Lunch Program, established in 2001, was the Brown Baggers’ first outreach venture. On Mondays and Thursdays, crews within the 30 volunteers gather at Sonoma’s St. Leo Catholic Church to prepare the burritos.

“We put close to 10,000 burritos on the streets of Sonoma every year,” said Kemp, clearly proud of that statistic.

It all began in 2000 when migrant workers were living in the creeks of Sonoma.

“We made it a moral question,” Kemp said. “These people were living in the creek, but we were a wealthy community. We were closing our eyes to our brothers and our brothers who were helping us make wine. There was no one looking after them.”

Kemp and a friend, Mary Shea, were frustrated about this conundrum. Ultimately they were inspired to act after reading an article about a priest in St. Helena named John Brenkle. The priest simply welcomed 45 migrant workers to sleep on his church’s porch.

The women followed Brenkle’s lead and created a camp for these migrant workers at Faith Lutheran Church in Sonoma. They purchased carports, tarps and cots, and brought in showers and toilets.

“The sheriffs cooperated,” Kemp said. “They found people living in the creek and they brought them to us. We were on their little route and every night they’d come by and see if everything was okay.”

The camp lasted two years, Kemp said, and their work inspired the non-profit group called Vineyard Worker Services to build units for migrant workers with a grant from the state of California.

Once that happened, Kemp and her volunteers created the “Brown Baggers,” focusing more of their efforts on feeding the homeless rather than housing them.

Incidentally, Kemp said, each brown bag includes more than a burrito. There’s also a piece of fruit and a treat.

With her growing network of chefs, Kemp continues to feed more of the hungry every day in Sonoma Valley.

“It’s never static,” Kemp said.

“It’s always growing, which sounds terrible but I don’t think of it in that way. I think it just means we’re actually reaching more of the hungry.”

Staff writer Peg Melnik can be reached at 707-521-5300 or peg.melnik@pressdemocrat.com.