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As you’ve probably heard, federal funds for CalFresh (SNAP, or “Food Stamps”) have been impacted by the U.S. Government shutdown. This means that Napa County families that rely on CalFresh each month for basic food necessities— 8% of our population— are in danger of going without food for at least the month of November.
See our article below for more information and ways to help.
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- Featured Project: CanDo's Give!Guide is Live!
- Neighbors Helping Neighbors: CanDo's Guide for Community Support During SNAP Shortfalls
- TODAY is Election day! Have you voted yet?
- Inspiring Inclusion: Native American Heritage Month - Timeless Magic of Storytelling
- Spotlight on Local Nonprofits
- Highlights from CanDo's Community Calendar
- Compost Corner: What About “Hard-to-Recycle” Plastics?
- Quick Tip: List of Food Resources in Napa County
- Bits & Pieces: StoryCorps - The Great Thanksgiving Listen
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CanDo's Give!Guide is Live!
November 1 - December 31, 2025
Click the image below to download the 2025 Give!Guide Brochure
| | CanDo's Guide for Community Support During SNAP Shortfalls | | |
The Federal Government Shutdown Impact on Food Assistance Programs
The nation’s food banks are facing a perfect storm of rising prices, federal cuts, and surging demand. Across the country, providers are preparing for a sharp increase in need as an estimated 42 million people lose access to SNAP benefits during the ongoing federal government shutdown.
Key points:
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SNAP payments suspended: Monthly benefits stopped beginning Nov 1. Despite recent federal court orders, there is no certainty on when benefits could resume or whether they will be partial or full payments.
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Rising demand: High grocery prices and other cost increases have already sent more families to food banks for help.
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Reduced federal support for SNAP: Recently enacted legislation added restrictions on eligibility.
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Direct cuts to food banks:
- $1B cut from USDA programs that supplied local fruits, vegetables, and proteins.
- $500M cut from programs providing meat, dairy, eggs, and produce.
The result: local food providers—already stretched thin—are bracing for record demand. Our own CANV Napa Food Bank is no exception.
In California, SNAP benefits are distributed through CalFresh, providing debit cards for groceries to those who qualify. When these benefits stop, people often turn to food banks for help. Even with temporary state or federal relief, many who don’t qualify for SNAP rely solely on food banks to feed their families.
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How You Can Help
Make a direct monetary donation to the Napa Food Bank.
The Food Bank’s dollar goes much further, allowing them to purchase exactly what’s needed from their trusted suppliers at greatly reduced costs. Donate here.
Help support CalFresh in Napa
On Monday Oct. 27, Napa County Supervisors approved up to $1 million in local aid to keep groceries flowing if November CalFresh benefits aren’t made available. The Napa County Health and Human Services Agency has received many inquiries asking how organizations and individuals can add to the value of what the County can provide in emergency grocery store gift cards.
As a result, the Napa Valley Community Foundation has established an online donation link for their Food Access Fund that accomplishes the following:
- Provide emergency grocery cards and meal support for individuals and families in need
- Help local food banks and pantries restock essential items and fresh produce
Help CanDo's Napa Food Project supply the food bank with nonperishable food. We're aiming to make our December 13 green bag collection the biggest one ever! Please join us. Information and sign up form here.
| CanDo thanks all of you who want to help our neighbors during this crisis! | | | | You can volunteer for one of our dynamic projects, even for just an hour or two, or help one of the many local organizations we support. Each individual action connects to others. Together, we‘re making our Valley and world better. | | |
TODAY is Election day! Have you voted yet?
Your ballot must be postmarked TODAY, November 4, 2025. To be counted, the ballot must then be received by your county elections office no later than November 12, 2025.
Here’s some useful information:
Did you know that the Napa Election Division has moved? It is now located on the first floor of the Hall of Justice at 1125 3rd Street in Downtown Napa.
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November is Native American Heritage Month
2025 Theme: The Timeless Magic of Storytelling
The Beginning
Our early ancestor Homo erectus evolved about 1.5 million years ago and was the first hominid to walk upright, leaving arms and hands free not only for carrying and toolmaking but also, importantly, for making gestures.
Homo erectus used fire—so they very likely were the first ancestors to gather around a fire, cook, eat and share stories that passed on knowledge crucial to survival: stories related to hunting and the spirit world.
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In the Americas
In Native American communities, oral traditions have always been a form of shared history, recorded and preserved in a variety of ways for thousands of years.
For example, Native Americans of the Northern Great Plains region recorded their histories through pictographic paintings on bison hides called winter counts which were created and preserved by storytellers.
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1800s - mid 1900s
After the end of the Indian Wars the federal government outlawed the practice of traditional religious ceremonies. Native American children were required to attend boarding schools where they were forced to speak English, study standard subjects, attend church, and leave tribal traditions behind. Most of these schools sought to suppress any sign of students’ tribal heritage and to “Americanize” them. Naturally, many of the centuries-old traditional ways, including languages and stories, were in danger of becoming lost forever.
| | Students with their teachers inside a Walapai school at Hackbury, Arizona, ca 1900. Wikipedia Commons | | Osage Indian School football team. Library of Congress | | | | |
1960s
During the late 60s, the occupation of Alcatraz and the Red Power movement helped Native Americans reclaim their culture by ending assimilation policies, fostering pan-tribal unity, and promoting cultural pride and traditions— including the telling of ancient stories. A relatively new form of pottery art emerged: the storyteller figurine. The first storyteller doll was crafted by Cochiti Pueblo potter Helen Cordero in 1963. The doll represented her grandfather telling her old tribal tales. Thankfully, many of the old stories have survived and are still told today.
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2024
On Sunday, June 30, 2024, four contemporary Indigenous storytellers gathered in the National Museum of the American Indian’s Amphitheater for a one-time-only Storytelling Roundtable, each taking the stage for a delightful, participatory performance, bringing to life traditional stories — one with a delightfully unexpected ending.
Across the continent and across cultures, the troublemaker character of Rabbit made multiple appearances.
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VIDEO: Indigenous Storyteller Roundtable (2024 Smithsonian Folklife Festival)
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In this unabridged video of the session, you’ll hear:
- Perry Ground (Onandaga) tell a teasing story about a contest to win the most beautiful lacrosse stick
- Gene Tagaban/Guuy Yaau (Tlingit/Cherokee/Filipino) recount a meeting among all the animals and Rabbit’s constant disruptions
- Amy Burton Bluemel (Chickasaw) explain why Rabbit has a line down the middle of his nose
- Robert Lewis (Cherokee) take a surprising twist in Rabbit’s need to follow the crowd
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2025: Your Turn
Have you ever tried your hand at storytelling? StoryCorps makes it easy to interview others or tell family stories. It’s a PBS project that preserves stories, told by all/any of us, in the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
Its mission? “Since 2003, StoryCorps has built the largest collection of human voices ever archived — and we want to add yours. Our mission is to build connections, encourage compassion between people, and share stories, big and small… You and your partner can record a conversation either using StoryCorps’ self directed recording tools or at one of the StoryCorps recording sites.”
| | | More Opportunities to Support Our Community | | |
Volunteer Opportunities & Events to Support Local Nonprofit Groups
Tell 'em you heard about it through CanDo!
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DONATION DRIVE FOR PROGRAM 4 PATIENTS
Sponsor: Dept. of State Hospitals - Napa
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DAY/DATE/TIME:
November through December
Tues-Fri, 8:00 AM - 4:30 PM
LOCATION: Volunteer Center at Napa State Hospital, 2100 Napa-Vallejo Hwy, Napa. Call in advance for gate access and directions.
FFI:
Email heather.lopez1@dsh.ca.gov or call 707-253-5540
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TOO POOR TO DIE
BOOK READING WITH AUTHOR AMY SHEA
Sponsor: OmaiGRACE/NVUU Death Positive Series
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DAY/DATE/TIME:
Thursday, December 4, 6-8PM
LOCATION: Napa Valley Unitarian Universalists, 1625 Salvador Avenue, Napa
FFI:
Email anne.jungerman@gmail.com or visit their website
| | | If you represent a local nonprofit, you may submit a SPOTLIGHT EVENT or VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITY by completing our online form. | | Space permitting, posts run up to three weeks prior to your event. Flyer or image is required and must be sent as a jpg. | |
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Sunday, 6PM for the following Tuesday's edition.
FFI: Learn more and submit your event here.
| | Looking for Local Volunteer Opportunities? | | Local community members can connect with the causes they are passionate about. | |  | Explore volunteer, event, and action listings to discover ways to make a positive impact in your community. | | | Highlights from CanDo's Community Calendar | | |
Compost Corner
Napa Recycling provides answers to your questions about recycling, composting, and the like.
What About “Hard-to-Recycle” Plastics?
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Q: I received a postcard inviting me to sign up for Ridwell to recycle thin plastics, multi-layer plastics, and small hard plastics. Visiting your website I was surprised to see that there is the option to drop off plastic film for recycling at the Lincoln Ave. office. Given that we've all now heard about how soft plastic cannot truly be recycled, and ends up in landfills anyway (or in giant piles in other countries), where does this type of plastic that you collect actually end up?
And of course, what do you think about Ridwell?
A: Napa Recycling has soft-launched a drop-off site for clean, dry stretchy plastics (like grocery bags and wrap) in the lobby of the Lincoln Ave. office. These materials are kept separate from other recyclables, then baled with commercial shrink wrap and sent to approved recycling markets. While there are limited outlets for this material now, California’s SB 54 law will require packaging producers to fund recycling or reuse systems—or face bans by 2032. This drop-off helps Napa Recycling test collection methods as the state builds that system. So yes, you can bring clean, dry stretchy plastic to the Lincoln office during open hours. Learn more here.
Ridwell is a mail-back recycling service, but it’s not authorized to operate in Napa, where Napa Recycling is the exclusive franchise collector. The service is also costly, collects only small amounts of material, and runs against the spirit of producer responsibility. Under California’s SB 54, producers—not consumers—are expected to cover the costs of recycling hard-to-recycle packaging.
| | If you have a question about recycling or other waste disposal, send it to info@nvcando.org with “compost corner” in the subject line. We’ll send it on to Tim, Recycling & Public Education Manager at Napa Recycling & Waste Services. You may first want to check if the answer to your question is here, in NRWS’s Recycling Guide. | | |
List of Food Resources in Napa County
(Please note: The CANV Napa Food Bank warehouse and pantry have moved to 938 Kaiser Road, Napa, CA 94558. The address hasn’t been updated in some of these resources. We can’t guarantee that everything listed here is up-to-date.)
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StoryCorps: The Great Thanksgiving Listen
The Great Thanksgiving Listen is a national education project that empowers high school students to create an oral history of the contemporary United States by recording an interview with an elder over Thanksgiving weekend using the StoryCorps app.
Interviews are added to the StoryCorps Archive of the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, where they become an invaluable resource for future historians and provide families with a priceless piece of personal history.
To get started, download the free StoryCorps app using any smartphone device. (Available on iTunes and Google Play.)
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PO Box 855
Napa, CA 94559
Email: info@nvcando.org
Phone: (707) 225-8942
Tax ID: 46-2670379
| | | | New to CanDo? Want to receive this nifty eNewsletter? It comes out bright and early the 1st and 3rd Tuesdays of the month, full of ways you can volunteer and connect with community. | | |
You Want to Help. We Make it Easy is a registered trademark of the Neighborhood Food Project. Used by permission.
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