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SEPTEMBER 2026
Weaving community
through food
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A NEW SEASON AT CAJA
We’re entering a quieter season
Dear friends,
As September arrives, we’re flipping the tomatoes and putting in the cabbages, preparing for the season of greens and beans and the cooling foods that come with fall and winter.
As an organization, we’re entering a cooling season, too.
We’re taking stock of what we have, what we’ve learned this year, and what we can responsibly hold while we wait for Healthy Opportunities Pilot funding to become contracts we can deliver and for longer-term financing strategies to take root.
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Shared-use kitchen moving home to the farm
This fall, Caja’s shared-use kitchen is moving home to our farm
in Mills River, where food entrepreneurs can continue to cook,
create, and grow their businesses in our activity kitchen.
From young entrepreneurs making cookies for market to new food
businesses just getting started, we love seeing what our community
creates in this space.
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Cook.
Create.
Grow.
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Good food.
Pay what you can.
Everyone welcome.
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Pay-what-you-can restaurant closes for winter
We’re incredibly proud of how quickly this community brought our pay-what-you-can restaurant to life in support of the shared-use kitchen and our Food is Medicine work. Your survey responses are telling us why the restaurant matters. People value the healthy food, the local farms behind it, the ability to pay what they can afford, and having a welcoming, dignified place for everyone.
From the beginning, the math told us that in a rented space, we would need to serve about 60 bowls a day, or roughly 3,600 per quarter, for the restaurant to sustain itself. So many of you showed up to help us test whether this model could work.
And a lot of it did work.
About 70% of customers paid the suggested price, making it possible for others to pay what made sense for them. That’s the balance pay-what-you-can restaurants work toward. Even with mostly organic, mostly local ingredients, we kept food costs low and staffing lean. But the reality is that restaurant revenue was still only covering the rent. So rather than keep pushing a model that isn’t yet financially sustainable, we’re bringing the work back to space we own and taking the winter to learn from what you’ve told us.
We know this community resource is needed. Now we’re figuring out how to build the next version so it can last.
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Pay-what-you-can bowls shared
each quarter of 2026
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Borrow it.
Fix it.
Build it.
Share what you know.
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Putting real energy into the Tool Library
For $50 a year, you can borrow tools to fix things, build things, grow things, and tackle projects without having to buy equipment you may only use once. But we want the library to be more than a collection of tools. We want it to be a place where neighbors share skills and help one another get things done.
Join the library, borrow some tools, or bring us an idea for a partnership. We want to get this thing humming.
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SUSTAINING FOOD IS MEDICINE
Sonya has been on a bit of a road show this year.
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THE BIG QUESTION
How do we build durable financing for community-based Food is Medicine?
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Sonya has been on a bit of a road show this year, sharing Caja’s Food is Medicine model and working with partners on a bigger question: How do we build durable financing for community-based Food is Medicine? She’s carried that conversation from the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders Conference in Savannah to Food Health LIVE in Nashville and Nourish to Flourish in Lake Junaluska, while also participating in FIMCON in Washington, DC and the State of Food is Medicine Convening.
Closer to home, that work continues through the emerging NC Food is Medicine Coalition, where Caja is working alongside partners across the state to build momentum for lasting Food is Medicine support in North Carolina.
And we’re investing in the leadership needed for the road ahead. Launch Carolinas has selected Sonya for its four-year Leadership Accelerator, supporting her growth as Caja takes on a larger role in this work.
We’re building toward a future where Food is Medicine isn’t dependent on the next grant, but is sustainably financed as part of how communities support health.
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Good food. Strong communities.
Financing that lets both thrive.
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WHAT WE’RE TENDING
We’re not going dormant this winter.
We’re putting our energy into the roots.
Come grow, build, cook, share, learn, and dream with us.
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There’s room for you in the weave.
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