Thumbs up: Hot meals for hurricane victims

Thumbs up for everyone who has chipped in to help victims of Hurricane Harvey - and to all those who will contribute to Hurricane Irma relief efforts. For some people, that means giving cash or goods. There also are people who head into the disaster zone, Red Cross volunteers who help staff shelters and first-responders who join rescue efforts. The Redwood Empire Food Bank is taking its Kitchen Collective program to Houston next week. The one-of-a-kind program turns donated food into 4,000 heat-and-eat meals for North Bay families each month. Chef Don Nolan heads to Houston on Monday to help disaster relief organizations make healthy meals out of millions of pounds of food donated to help victims of the Gulf Coast hurricane.

“This is what we do every day for our Sonoma County neighbors as a hunger relief organization,” said David Goodman, the food bank’s chief executive officer. “Sometimes our neighborhood grows larger, and in the case of devastating emergencies like Hurricane Harvey, with the Houston Food Bank seeing an enormous increase in the amount of hungry people, our focus must also grow.”