Redwood Empire Food Bank Launches Doorstep Food Drive with A Simple Gesture

The Redwood Empire Food Bank ran its first doorstep food collection in partnership with A Simple Gesture and Redwood Credit Union last holiday season, asking Sonoma County and North Bay residents to do nothing more complicated than leave a bag of nonperishable groceries outside their front door.

The drive, which launched November 4, 2025 and ran through December 19, organized volunteer drivers around two designated Saturday pickup days: November 8 and December 13. Registered donors left bags on their doorsteps; A Simple Gesture volunteer drivers collected them and delivered the food directly to the Redwood Empire Food Bank at 3990 Brickway Blvd. in Santa Rosa. Whatever came in through those doorstep pickups went into REFB's distribution network, reaching families across five counties: Sonoma, Lake, Mendocino, Humboldt, and Del Norte.

Registration ran through refb.org/asg. The A Simple Gesture platform sent donors a reminder ahead of each pickup date and, at sign-up, extended an invitation to go further: donors could also enroll as volunteer drivers through the Drive For Good program, picking up bags in their own neighborhoods and delivering them to the food bank.

Brett Martinez, president and CEO of Redwood Credit Union, framed the drive in terms of access and urgency. "RCU is proud to support the tireless work of the Redwood Empire Food Bank toward ensuring that people and families across our region have access to nourishing food and a sense of hope," Martinez said. "With the need at an all-time high, we're making it simpler and more convenient than ever for our community to take action and help make sure no one goes hungry."

The A Simple Gesture platform listed eight priority items for donors: canned tuna, canned chicken, peanut butter, rice, pasta, oats, dry beans, and low-sugar cereal. Glass containers, perishable items, open or partially used packages, homemade food, items past their use-by date, and cleaning products or chemicals were all excluded.

The model traces back to Jonathan Trivers, a retired resident of Paradise, California, who started A Simple Gesture with his wife as a not-for-profit to supply local food banks and pantries. Trivers believed his town of 35,000 people already had enough food to feed everyone but lacked a practical mechanism to move it to those who needed it most. His solution drew on his marketing background. The Paradise chapter now counts more than 1,700 food donors and collects over 132,000 pounds of food annually. Communities across the country have since built their own chapters using his model; A Simple Gesture-Guilford County became a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2015 following that same template.

REFB, a Feeding America member, has been operating since 1987 and describes itself as the largest hunger-relief organization serving Northern California, with a record of serving more than 140,000 children, families, and seniors in Sonoma County and the broader region.

The food bank was explicit on one structural point: the Redwood Empire Food Bank is not affiliated with A Simple Gesture and does not share donor information with A Simple Gesture. The partnership was operational, not organizational, with each entity maintaining its own data.

For questions about the drive, REFB's media contact is Rachelle Mesheau, Director of Marketing and Communications, reachable at 707-523-7900 ext. 113 or rmesheau@refb.org.