Julia Child once said that people who love to eat are always the best people. If that’s true, Santa Barbara County is in especially good hands this year.
It’s all thanks to the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience (SBCE), which just announced $35,000 in grants to seven local nonprofit organizations working at the intersection of food, education and community care.
The gift represents a $5,000 increase over last year’s giving, a testament to what happens when a community shows up, again and again, for the events, dinners and tastings that make up SBCE’s calendar.
Every ticket purchased, every glass raised at a wine tasting, becomes, in the end, a quiet act of stewardship for the region that grows the grapes, tends the fields, and trains the next generation of cooks and vintners.
“Each of these organizations is doing meaningful work to support Santa Barbara County’s food system,” SBCE director Tamara Berndt said, “and we’re proud that the SBCE community’s participation translates directly into a positive impact for the nonprofits on the front lines.”
Scholarship in Julia Child’s Honor
Perhaps the most personal of this year’s awards is the one given to the SBCC Foundation, which will use its $5,000 grant to launch the newly christened Santa Barbara Culinary Experience Scholarship for students entering Santa Barbara City College’s Culinary Arts program.
It’s a fitting tribute given SBCE’s partnership with the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts, and given that the scholarship idea came from someone who knew Child’s legacy well: Mitchell Sjerven, owner of bouchon Santa Barbara and a longtime SBCC Culinary Arts lecturer.
“The cost of attending SBCC is an extraordinary value, but specialty books, attire, knives and equipment add up fast,” Sjerven said.
“I was delighted to recommend this scholarship. I’m sure Julia Child would approve!”
This year’s award will fund two scholarships, bringing the total number of Culinary Arts students SBCE has supported since 2025 to four. It’s a small but growing legacy of young cooks getting their start with a little less financial worry and a little more room to focus on their craft.
From the Ground Up
Much of this year’s giving reaches toward the soil itself. Veggie Rescue received $5,000 to support its Shepherd’s Giving Farm, 20 leased acres between Buellton and Lompoc where farmer Tom Shepherd is already coaxing 2,500 pounds of produce a week from the earth, food that moves directly to nonprofit partners working to ease hunger across the county.
“It’s such a win-win,” executive director Eryn Shugart said, “to have an organization that provides fun and delicious food events for our community … donating to a nonprofit like Veggie Rescue, which works to alleviate food insecurity.”
Growing Grounds Farm, a program of Transitions-Mental Health Association in Santa Maria, will use its grant for seeds ahead of the 2027 growing season, a modest-sounding expense that is, in truth, the very first step of a program pairing therapeutic horticulture with vocational training for adults living with mental illness.
Education in the vineyard gets its own boost, too. Allan Hancock College’s Viticulture and Enology Foundation will put its award toward new vines and irrigation for the campus’ teaching vineyard and winery, giving students hands-on experience crafting the wines that help define this region.
Meanwhile, the Santa Barbara Agriculture & Farm Education Foundation will direct its grant toward Warka Towers, ingenious structures that pull irrigation water straight from the air, nudging local farming toward a more drought-resilient future.
Caring for the Hands That Grow Our Food
Not all nourishment comes on a plate. The Santa Barbara Vintners Foundation will use its grant to support the Holiday Hope campaign, which delivers warm coats, boots and gift cards to more than 130 vineyard workers each winter.
As vice president Karen Steinwachs put it, invoking Child’s own philosophy that wine is food to be consumed with food, the county’s vineyard workers “work year-round to grow the vines that produce the world-class wines in Santa Barbara County,” and deserve care in return.
And for the youngest members of the community, Route One Farmers Market will relaunch its Power of Produce nutrition classes, giving 15 to 20 children a year of hands-on lessons in shopping for fruits and vegetables and planting — perhaps, the seeds of a lifelong relationship with good food.
Looking Ahead
The generosity doesn’t end here. On Oct. 25, the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience and Veggie Rescue will host Field and Table: An Afternoon at Shepherd’s Giving Farm, inviting guests to plant and pick alongside the farm team before settling in for a farm-fresh picnic.
And mark the calendar for May 10-16, when the full Santa Barbara Culinary Experience returns for a week of classes, dinners and excursions, closing with the ever-popular Grand Wine Tasting at El Presidio Santa Barbara.
In a county so often defined by its abundance, of sunshine, of soil, of good wine, SBCE’s grants are a reminder that abundance means little unless it’s shared.
One dinner, one glass, one scholarship at a time, that’s exactly what this community continues to do.
Click here for more information about the Santa Barbara Culinary Experience.
