One kit, every application.

For "statement of need" / "problem" sections.

The Monterey Bay region grows a disproportionate share of the nation's produce, yet Peninsula residents — especially in Seaside and Marina — often lack a durable, everyday food space where local produce, prepared food, and cultural programming meet. Under the conventional food system, farmers receive roughly 11.8 cents per dollar spent on food, and surplus or seconds routinely get disposed of at the farm's expense. At the same time, CalFresh-eligible households face a limited set of retail settings where local produce is welcoming, affordable, and easy to shop with EBT. Groundworks addresses both sides of that gap at once: it buys the surplus at a fair, transparent farmer return, and it puts that food in front of neighbors — with EBT accepted from day one — inside a space that treats food as culture, not category.

The Café is the revenue anchor and daily gathering point: a light-but-real, counter-service kitchen serving a seasonal menu built from Salinas and Pajaro Valley produce and value-add trim. Design targets ~25 transactions/day at an average ticket of $14–$17. The café's sourcing story is public and specific — ingredients are named by farm — and staff are trained to talk about the supply chain as part of service.

The Farm Stand and Marketplace is the front door: a curated selection of produce and value-added goods from a rotating set of Salinas and Pajaro Valley farms, priced above wholesale with a published pricing philosophy. CalFresh/EBT is accepted from day one; Year-1 target is 500+ EBT transactions. Where possible the stand takes on surplus and seconds farms would otherwise dispose of, at prices that make sorting worthwhile.

The Education Center is the reason to stay: 40+ programming events per year, owned and curated in-house — workshops, film nights, guest talks, cooking demos, youth programming, and the Groundworks Bookshelf. Programming is intentionally accessible (sliding-scale or free where funded) and designed to build the region's next generation of food-and-farm leaders alongside the organization's paying customers.

Residents of Seaside, Marina, and the broader Monterey Peninsula, with intentional focus on CalFresh-eligible households, families with young children, students, and neighbors underserved by the Peninsula's current retail-food footprint. On the supply side, Groundworks directly serves working farmers of the Salinas and Pajaro valleys by paying above-wholesale for produce and by absorbing surplus and seconds at fair prices.

Groundworks is capitalized with a $150K–$250K startup budget: kitchen buildout and equipment ($75K–$125K), lease deposit and first three months' rent ($15K–$25K), farm-stand fixtures/POS/signage ($10K–$20K), initial inventory ($5K–$10K), legal/permits/insurance ($5K–$10K), marketing and launch ($5K–$10K), 3 months' working capital ($30K–$50K), and education startup ($5K–$10K). Year-1 revenue is designed at ~$295K–$360K across café, farm stand, grants, ticketed events, and donations, with earned revenue covering core operations and grants funding the mission layer.

Groundworks operates in a majority-minority community and is designed for it. CalFresh/EBT is accepted from day one, not phased in. Board recruitment intentionally seeks working farmers, food-systems professionals, and a community anchor drawn from the neighborhood. Pricing, sourcing, and impact numbers are published, so equity commitments can be checked against practice, not marketing. Programming partners include RCD, UCCE, and local food-nonprofit collaborators serving the same communities.

Groundworks tracks a small, honest set of Year-1 core metrics: café transactions/day, farm-stand EBT transactions, dollars paid to local farms with per-farm reporting, number of programming events and attendees, and the operating gap between earned revenue and total expenses. Metrics are published on an annual impact page. Grant-specific reporting is added on top of that shared baseline, so the organization tells the same story to every funder.