Record drought decimated the Midwestern food harvest last summer. Superstorm Sandy caught New York and New Jersey off-guard. Climate change isn’t just an abstract, future possibility. It’s our current reality, and we need to be prepared.

Here in the Bay Area, we’ve rejected the gloom and doom mentality. Instead, we’re taking proactive steps now to make our communities more resilient in the face of climate instability. San Francisco is often regarded as a food mecca, yet many in the city cannot eat healthy, local food purchased near home. Known as food deserts, instead of healthy local food, there are liquor stores and fast food.

In recent years, city leaders like Gavin Newsom and David Chiu led a steady drumbeat of policy change to advance San Francisco’s role in providing land and resources for urban agriculture. With this in mind, The San Francisco Foundation updated our Environment Program funding guidelines last summer to reflect a climate resilience framework, with a focus on food access for low-income people and communities of color. On the heels of this, The San Francisco Foundation applied for and received three-year matching funds from the Convergence Innovation Fund to launch the Healthy Food for All initiative.

Through this effort, we will partner with the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, which will offer up two 6,000-square-foot sites for food growing in the Bayview and the Excelsior. People’s Grocery will ensure a community-driven process to determine how to use the sites. Greenbelt Alliance, SAGE, and American Farmland Trust will then develop a regional business plan and investment strategy for local food that elevates the economic development opportunities for vulnerable communities. We will train and invest in neighborhood leaders. Over the years, we will tap into the expertise and know-how of 27 other current and former Innovation Fund grantees, craft policy solutions, and share what we learn on a national stage.

These days, First Lady Michelle Obama isn’t the only one talking about healthy, local food. Unfortunately, climate change makes the issue urgent. Now is the time to take bold risks to promote a more resilient region.

Through Healthy Food for All, underutilized sites will be transformed into food hubs for low-income communities and communities of color. This is what community resilience looks like.

On Monday’s Presidential Inauguration, Obama devoted a large portion of his speech to climate change—more than one minute out of approximately twenty—longer than any other topic. He said failure to respond to the threat “would betray our children and future generations,” and he pledged to lead the fight against climate change and toward sustainable energy solutions.

Obama’s pledge for a greener path forward fell on the same day as millions around the country and globe honored the great legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  Dr. King could just as well have been speaking about the urgency of addressing climate change when he said, “we have been forced to a point where we’re going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demand didn’t force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them.”

Fast forward to Tuesday, when we brought together over forty organizations and individuals at The San Francisco Foundation, to talk about building community resilience in a time of climate change. We believe that climate change is the most pressing issue of our time and that climate change will disproportionately affect California’s most disadvantaged and isolated communities. Addressing social vulnerability and building community resilience in climate policies and response strategies will be critical to California’s future.

Representatives from government, community-based organizations, non-profits and philanthropy learned about the regional climate landscape, and steps that are being taken to adapt to the coming changes.

Our goals were clear: to not only address the issues of climate change, but to ensure that we were in it, together. That we build a strong, collective will to ensure that all of us protect and support one another in a time of crisis. And that it is vital for community members to be part of the decision making. Ideas, strategies and inspiration were flowing, and the desire to do something tangible, and immediate, were palpable. The collective wisdom in the room held the promise of deep impact and positive change.

As Dr. King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”  If we can work together to build the resilience of the most vulnerable communities, we may be able to turn the rising tide and create a more equitable future for us all.