All posts in Community category.
Imagine a forest that is open to all, providing food and sanctuary, right in the middle of Washington. While it might sound like a fairy tale, Ecolocity D.C. is developing a miniature version in the Pleasant Plains neighborhood and hopes to expand this vision throughout the city. While the sun powers the growth of the [...]
Food advocates these days don’t have it easy. There’s plenty written on the ways that poverty, access, and obesity influence what we eat — now fair food activists are exploring what resources, approaches, and strategies are successfully changing how we eat. Just last month, a UNC-based study found that simply improving access to supermarkets in [...]
Aya Community Markets (Aya) is a community-centered economic and holistic health experience that combines education, farmers’ markets and community supported sustainable agriculture to provide access to healthy food and improved nutrition in “food deserts” and underserved communities in Washington, DC.
Join us for our launch on Saturday July 30th from 11am until 5pm at Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church (3000 Penn. Ave. SE).
Aya’s physical farmers’ markets will be a vibrant gathering places and destination points where consumers will come to not only shop for produce, but will be able to access various vendors for goods and services for mental, spiritual and financial health. This holistic approach will attract customers in search of other health experiences such as yoga, exercise classes, or credit counseling which help to improve the community.
Aya Community Markets will offer fresh, local produce, flowers, prepared foods and handcrafted items directly to Ward 7 residents. In addition Aya will host a wide range of family and nutritional programs, including live entertainment, chef demonstrations and youth activities.
Aya will feature:
Visit http://dreamingoutloud.org/ayamarkets for more!
GET YOUR GROW ON with the Edible Urban Garden Tour, hosted by Loulies.com, Friday, July 15th from 5-8PM. Explore city spaces and residential gardens that will open their doors and gates for the public to see what growing good food in our own backyards, front yards, rooftops, and empty lots is all about. It’s a [...]
[Cross-posted on the Bread for the City blog]
Earlier this summer, Louise Thundercloud, Angie Stackhouse and I represented Bread for the City at the Community Food Security Coalition’s (CFSC) “From Neighborhood To Nation” Conference in Portland, OR. This event convened people from across the country who are working to promote local and state-level policies for healthier and more just food systems.
Set in a city whose mayor owns chickens and dedicates city hall land to the production of food for local homeless shelters, the conference had no shortage of government-driven food-policy role models. We learned about progressive and impressive urban agriculture policies and programs in Baltimore, healthy food systems resolutions in Cleveland, coordination across Michigan’s cities to identify shared infrastructure needs, and Seattle’s efforts to link local legislation to national Farm Bill policies.
It’s time for summer’s first garden celebration with City Blossoms…. Come join food lovers and community gardeners on Thursday, June 23 for City Blossoms’ 3rd Annual PROPER TOPPER Garden Fiesta. Friends, put on your best hats (homemade or store-bought) and enjoy an enchanting evening in the garden under the stars. The event will take place [...]
Angie Stackhouse is Bread for the City client and a local advocate for social justice issues, particularly for the homeless community. Angie has been helping Bread for the City with the food policy council planning process with the Health Affordable Food for All Coalition, and recently traveled attended a food policy conference with others from Bread for the City. Angie has blogged with us in the past about homelessness in DC.
I came to the Community Food Security Coalition’s local policy conference to find out how we can better serve the homeless community in terms of getting fresh vegetables in shelters. Once there, I met a lot of people who talked about how that’s just one important way among many that we can improve our communities’ food systems, improving our health while also developing economic opportunity.
And I realized that what we all want is healthy affordable food for all – so let’s do it!
How do we make that happen? First, you need to think about who needs to be brought to the table. You need to do the groundwork – going into the communities and asking people how they feel about their food choices and how they feel about not having fresh food in their neighborhood.
You also need to have people who know about things like zoning, people who are affiliated with the Health department (to highlight the importance of sickness & disease happening in the neighborhoods), and folks who have data linking lack of fresh vegetables to sickness and obesity (that’ll help convince City Council how important it is). Then, you start thinking about how to work together to make it happen.
I learned that having something like a food policy council can help make sure the City Council recognizes that people need fresh & healthy food. And I learned that successful food policy councils have participation and leadership from residents who themselves are struggling with these problems and searching for solutions.
But we also learned that you’ve got to be strategic. You have to know how to use the tools that you have with limited resources. Being strategic means being able to clearly define what you’re trying to do, which also makes people more likely to want to sign on.
So let’s get to work! Here are some of my favorite ideas from the conference:
And here’s what I’m going to be doing now that I’m back in DC:
Last year, President Obama signed the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 into law; the act also being a huge boost to First Lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move! Initiative”. The new law is intended to improve the quality of school breakfast, lunches, and other foods sold in schools.
However, as politicians applaud themselves on taking a step to strengthen nutrition programs nationwide, a noteworthy movement to build a better food system is still ranging on in the nation’s capital. This movement is not being organized by politicians or in city hall, but in the classroom and organized by students who want a change in their school’s food program.
The ESL program at Cardozo High School is comprised of students from countries across the world, from Western Africa, China, to Latin America; which is why they are correctly referred to as “many languages, one voice”. For almost 3 years, with the help of Jenny Nelson the Education Coordinator, they have been trying to wage a campaign to change the food system in their school. Also, ESL students come from ethnic backgrounds that place an emphasis on prepared rather then processed foods, with many of the students being vegan; therefore changing the quality of foods in their school has become a very personal cause for the students.
According to Jenny, the students started out the campaign by trying to talk to the School Nutritionist. However, the School Nutritionist stated that the issue is “closed” and the students have plenty of healthy options at the school’s A La Carte line and with the weekly pizza (although pizza is one of the top 3 causes of child obesity). Jenny and the students will try to reach out to the School Nutritionist sometime in the near future, but they believe the path to changing their food program will probably not come through the School Nutritionist.
At the moment, Jenny and the students are at a standstill. They are still meeting weekly to think of new ways to organize around their cause. They have been trying to reach out to organizations like the Capital Area Food Bank and also officials in D.C. Public School System. Some other options have been to reach out to the Cardozo Alumni Association and also the Cardozo Student Government. Sadly, it has been very difficult because ESL students are marginalized, given their foreign backgrounds.
However, Jenny and the students will not be deterred, and their quest for a better food program is ongoing. While First Lady Michelle Obama is working on her “Let’s Move” campaign on the national level, these students have been moving, fighting, and are becoming an inspiration for a better food system for all of Washington, D.C.
As the campaign continues, I hope to have an update for DC Food For All soon. To get more invovled in projects like this, please visit: http://dcfarmtoschool.org/
Jeremiah Lowery can be reached at jeremiahalowery@gmail.com.
