Danielle Rinderknecht’s mother grew up in New Rochelle, New York, with three biological siblings and as many as six foster brothers and sisters at a given time. There were many mouths to feed.

“Her mom used to give them oatmeal for breakfast and if you didn’t finish the breakfast, it turned into your lunch. If you didn’t finish lunch, it turned into your dinner,” Rinderknecht says. “Her mom was just trying to make it and feed a bunch of kids. When my mom had us, she was like ‘[Forget] this, I’m not doing this to my kids.’”

Rinderknecht recalls “hating” her mother for expecting her to eat “disgusting” Brussels sprouts. While living in New Orleans in her early 20s, she saw them on a restaurant menu and decided to give them another try.

“I can’t tell you how many things when I was a kid that my mom fed us that I was unhappy about at the time and then as an adult, you try it again because you’re already kind of familiar, and you’re like, ‘Oh, this is actually good.’” 

Today, Rinderknecht has come full circle, bringing healthy food to area children. Thanks to a federal grant, she began working with the Sacramento County Office of Education’s Farm 2 Family project last September, which gives families “community-supported agriculture” boxes with fresh local seasonal produce.

From packing to distribution, Rinderknecht curates boxes with thoughtful planning.

She intentionally puts out the boxes for families at the end of month, when food budgets have been exhausted, or those relying on SNAP (CalFresh) have run out of their food stamp allotments.

“We decided that we would always deliver towards the end of the month and do what we can to help mitigate any of those types of things that are happening,” Rinderknecht says.

She also likes to see that there’s substance with their sustenance.

“I can get a pound of potatoes, or I can get a butternut squash, or I can get a head of cabbage, something that can maybe provide for two or three meals, depending on how many folks are in the household,” she continues.

Rinderknecht also takes advantage of the changing seasons and the bounty of produce specific to Northern California to introduce and encourage young people to try new things and “have as much impact as possible.”

Boxes have included golden giant Korean melons, white peaches, plumcots, and purple bell peppers, things not typically sold at neighborhood grocery stores.

“I just try to shake it up a bit,” Rinderknecht says. “We put the basics in there, but also put some of these things in there that are maybe a little bit more fun, and maybe some things that are newer for folks.”

It’s an opportunity to educate both children and parents who do the bulk of the cooking.

“Some of the things, like the purple bell peppers, for instance, they’re actually healthier for the human body,” Rinderknecht says. “Anything that’s purple has a compound in it called anthocyanin. It’s what makes stuff purple and blue. They have a higher level of antioxidants in them.”

Farm 2 Family participants get emails about what they’ll receive in a month’s box, which includes recipes and their ingredients. Rinderknecht committed herself to creating two recipes per box, but lately she has “felt inspired” and done three. She’s thankful for additional support from a grant partner, the Alchemist Community Development Corporation. Families in the county’s Early Head Start program gather once or twice monthly for a community meal event, where Alchemist staff and a chef work with the families to prepare a meal using the community-supported agriculture produce. Rinderknecht values their creative, kid-friendly recipes.

Alejandro Gomez, Alchemist community food connections manager, says the gatherings “offer a meaningful opportunity to support families in improving their nutrition” by introducing new vegetables and cooking methods.

“I love that we’re both doing it,” Gomez says. “With the Alchemist doing some of the cooking and us sending them recipes and us giving them the food, it’ll become more familiar faster.”

Danielle Rinderknecht currently assembles bounty boxes for local families at a shared space in Del Paso Heights. Roberta Alvarado, OBSERVER

The fall and winter seasons provide a cornucopia of items for Rinderknecht’s bounty boxes.

“We’ve got apples, pears, persimmons, pomegranates, citrus,” she lists, sounding like an infamous Shirley Caesar Thanksgiving meme.

There are also plenty of leafy greens this time of year. 

“I think my body celebrates internally when I eat kale,” Rinderknecht says.

Rinderknecht picks up some 30 varieties of leafy green including arugula, rainbow chard and Swiss chard, but some of the smaller farmers she works with “grow more obscure things.” One of her personal favorites is tatsoi, a spinach-like vegetable rich in vitamins A, C, and K, calcium, and iron that can be eaten raw or cooked.

“On our small local farms in Northern California, we’re just good at finding new alternatives to things that we’re really used to eating already,” she says. “One of my favorite farmers, out of Rio Linda, just told me that he’s got taro root, which I love.” 

Before starting Goodful, Rinderknecht admits she was “the person who went to the grocery store and bought the same half dozen items of produce every time I went.” This system, she says, was “built so we didn’t need to pay attention to what Mother Nature was offering at the time.”

“I can’t tell you how grateful I am to my mom for feeding us the way that she did when we were kids,” Rinderknecht says. “We still went out to eat pizza and we still went to McDonald’s, but for the most part, I remember eating at home and I remember her in the ’80s and ’90s, trying new international cuisine that was not the norm back then.”

On her own and in her 20s, Rinderknecht found herself eating more fast food, which left her feeling poorly.

Following a routine health screening Rinderknecht learned she was on the verge of getting cancer. Rather than immediately undergoing the recommended procedure to remove precancerous cells from her cervix, she found an OB/GYN willing to pursue an alternative path. After 21/2 years of quarterly checkups, she had a clear pap smear, proving that her commitment to a plant-based diet, adequate sleep, and exercise could work.

Five years later, Rinderknecht opened Goodful, initially as a restaurant serving healthy homemade meals. She was forced to shutter during the coronavirus pandemic.

“Our pivot turned out to be the bounty boxes,” she says.

She has built relationships with Black-owned farms and food businesses such as We Grow (urban) Farm, Brown Sugar Farm, Fields Family Farm, Yummy Honey, Pittador Brews, Brown Rice Bakery, and Bruthas Honey.

The local entrepreneur has faced ups and downs over the last three years, including leaving their Oak Park location. Goodful is working to secure a permanent brick-and-mortar space, update its website and add more items to attract customers and become eligible for EBT transactions.

Rinderknecht still hopes to offer produce boxes tailored to address chronic health conditions, a goal made more critical by recent federal funding cuts to programs that aimed to reduce disparities, especially in communities of color.

“It’s hard to focus on diet when you are trying to survive,” she says.

Lessons from the past can prove revolutionary in the present, Rinderknecht adds. “I’m not going to pretend to know the answer, but we do know that our ancestors were in touch with the earth more than the folks who dominate this country now.

“There are a lot of Black folks right now in California, even specifically in Sacramento, that are starting Black farms. They’re trying to reach out to our communities, to spread the word of, hey, we can farm; you can grow your own tomatoes or micro greens or whatever.

“People are trying to reintroduce our communities to getting back to growing things and to just being in touch with that aspect of life — touching dirt and being in the sun and having something growing around you. It’s such a small, teeny, tiny point in our lives, but those things have positive effects.”

Rinderknecht dreams of winning the lottery and taking her efforts to new heights.

“If I had all the money, I would try to do food forests in food deserts,” she says. “People could just come grab whatever they want. I hope that we get there.”

The fallout from recent cuts, EBT uncertainty and rising costs of food and health care have exacerbated matters. The start date to the county school program initially was delayed by federal funding uncertainty. She expects to deliver the boxes through December 2026, but knows things can change with little notice. Like the farmers she works with, Rinderknecht is paying attention to which way the wind blows and what impacts that’ll have, but has taken a wait-and-see approach.

“I try not to meddle too much when you’re dealing with governments,” she says “I’m just happy it’s happening and I’m hopeful that it sticks. I think we’re making a huge impact right now.”

Rinderknecht is half-jokingly working on a letter to philanthropist MacKenzie Scott, wishing someone would step up for hungry families. She views continued collaboration as more likely.

“We did some incredible community efforts during COVID,” she says. “I consider myself an everyday person. I think it takes everyday people like us to get it started and to fuel the momentum and to get people taken care of.”

To contact the Sacramento County Office of Education’s Farm to Family Project, call 916-228-2500 or visit scoe.net.

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