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Sonoma Index-Tribune
November 8, 2021
Pilates for Food for All/Comida para Todos

Local pilates instructor Jessica Fudim will offer a remote pilates mat class on Saturday, Nov. 13, from 10-11 a.m., where 100% of participants’ sliding-scale donations will be donated to Food for All/Comida para Todos, a volunteer-driven organization that delivers food and essential items directly to Sonoma families in need.

The money will go toward gasoline needed by volunteer drivers in order to make their bi-weekly, contactless, porch drop-offs. Food for All was founded by 10 individuals and has increased to a roster of 60 volunteers who have thus far served 5,265 families, or 23,692 individuals, in Sonoma Valley.

What began as a grassroots response to local food insecurity has grown to address education, housing and health. Tailored to a family’s needs, the nonprofit deliveries now include basic hygiene items such as personal protective equipment, diapers, menstrual care products and cleaning supplies. Food for All also offers a box of items designed for families who are quarantining as a COVID-19 precaution.

Maite Iturri, Food for All co-founder, said, “All the members work collectively to make decisions. The group loves the idea of the class fundraiser.”

Fudim has always included a public service component during her 20-plus years of teaching pilates. In January, her remote class fundraiser for Stacey Abram’s Fair Fight Action and Georgia Senate run-off candidates Jon Ossoff and Rev. Raphael Warnock, attracted 30 participants and raised over $1,900.

“There is something really inspiring about sharing that hour together,” Fudim says of her fundraiser classes, “We log on to class from our own homes- breathing, sweating, exercising together from different parts of the country. Seeing everyone in their little Zoom rectangles, united toward a common goal of making our world a better, more just place — it’s uplifting.”

Register for the event at jessicafudimpilates.com. Fudim grew up in Sonoma and recently moved back to town with her family.

Sonoma Index-Tribune
November 11, 2021
Kathleen Hill
INDEX-TRIBUNE FOOD AND WINE EDITOR

Remote pilates benefits Food for All/Comida para Todos
Pay attention because this remote Pilates mat class is tomorrow, Nov. 13, and you can participate from home. Every penny you pay will go to Food for All/Comida para Todos in the Springs.

Jessica Fudim, an accomplished professional dancer and pilates instructor who grew up in Sonoma, has moved back here from San Francisco with her husband and kids. Apparently the funds from the class will pay for volunteers’ gas to deliver bi-weekly, contactless porch drop-offs of some food and household and family necessities to local families in need.

Fudim always gives proceeds from her classes to causes, both social and political, that she believes in. She also teaches in person classes at Vintage House on Tuesdays and Thursdays. No one will be turned away from the class for lack of funds. Register at www.jessicafudimpilates.com. The online class runs from 10 to 11 a.m. Saturday.

Full disclosure: Jessica Fudim and our daughter, Erin Hill Freschi, were exchange students together to Sonoma’s Sister City of Kaniv, Ukraine as part of the organization’s first Global Student Exchange.