As I reported during the Social Forum, many of these principles and intentions can be seen in practice in Detroit. My reporting there only scratched the surface of the work that’s been done — and one of the things I learned was how much discussion and collective self-reflection had come before (and in the course of) meaningful action.

In the particular case of Detroit, the local food movement engaged in a series of workshops (facilitated by the People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond) focused on confronting and dismantling racism in both the industrial food system and the movement itself. Participants analyzed race and power dynamics, and emerged with a shared set of ideas and vocabulary with which they can collaboratively work to restructure those dynamics.

Images c/o Jessica Beaumont of the NYC Food Justice Delegation

During the People’s Movement Assembly on Food Justice at the Social Forum, participants formed a breakout group to focus specifically on this process of dismantling racism in the food system. As a white person of privilege working towards food justice in low-income, largely black communities in DC, I was grateful for the opportunity to join this group and learn more about my own role. Several leaders of Detroit’s movement helped facilitate the conversation, and we worked hard to consider what broad lessons could be drawn from their experience. The need (and desire) for greater dialogue was shared by all at the table, but many local food movements might not yet be at a point where it’s possible to gather the right set of people together in a room for a deep analysis of race, power, and white supremacy.

Yet we have to start the process somewhere (and, like it or not, that process is really best started in a place–not on a blog).

I was using that mobile device to take notes -- swear!

Fortunately, one promising answer can be found within the very stuff of this movement: food itself. More specifically, the way that social capital is generated by the growing, preparing, and eating of food. Several participants of the subgroup shared insights into how simple, deliberate community meals are used in their community to create spaces for dialogue and relationship-building. The Detroit folks recalled that their community’s dismantling racism workshops were, in fact, an idea that germinated in the course of a series of dinners among the movement’s leaders.

And so our Dismantling Racism subgroup of the Food Justice People’s Movement Assembly at the 2010 US Social Forum concluded with the presentation of what some may consider a “radical notion”: that we should gather people together in our communities to collaboratively prepare food, eat the food, and talk about the food.

Diners at the DC Food For All's launch: the Great Harvest

Personally, I was energized and encouraged by this experience; after all, the DC Food For All launched 9 months ago in this very way. Relationships forged in the course of these early meals continue to bear fruit today. So I’m sharing the text of the proposal forged in Detroit here in hopes that we can experiment with these accessible, social, and political community-building meals here in DC.

A proposal for dismantling racism: Let’s eat together

We affirmed the radical notion of sitting down and eating together as a starting point for building relationships, gaining historical perspective, sharing culture, learning from each other, offering practical tips for healthy cooking/eating, supplying food for those is need, discussing future action, recognizing who is missing from the table, and action to bring them into the circle next time. Many of the key ingredients to dismantling racism.

Building on the example of the People’s Kitchen Collective in Oakland we see endless potential in this model. Here are some ideas:

• Work to raise $$ so the meal can be free to all or on a sliding scale
• This example was a meal for 200 people
• Invite 20 people to come help prepare the meal
• Invite 4 people to teach one dish each
• Set up 4 stations and have each cook discuss the role this dish plays in their culture, where the ingredients come from (work to include the growers whenever possible), and how food can be used for organizing in their community
• Have the 20 cooks report back what they learned to the larger group
• Collectively say grace/thanks for the food!
• Offer discussion questions for each table
• Send each guest home with the recipes and whatever ingredients you can provide (especially cultural spices or things harder to find)
• Discuss who is missing from the table and what collectively can be done to include them next time
• Set a date for next meal!

The Social Forum — which convened in Detroit just last month — “is a movement building process… [that] provides spaces to learn 
from each other’s experiences and struggles, share our analysis of the problems 
our communities face, build relationships, and align with our international 
brothers and sisters to strategize how to reclaim our world.” It’ll be another three years before the US Social Forum convenes again, but in the meantime the process of the Social Forum is ongoing — as people from different movements, backgrounds and regions continue to deliberate and act upon solutions to the 
economic and ecological crisis.

An essential component of this process are People’s Movement Assemblies (PMA). PMAs are gatherings of people (25, 250 or more) that come together to collectively identify community issues, discuss solutions, and commit to actions.

Before the USSF2010 in Detroit, the Greater DC Social Forum (organized largely by attendees of USSF2007  in Atlanta) convened a DC People’s Movement Assembly. The Greater DC Social Forum will now convene another DC-area People’s Movement Assembly on August 7th, at 11AM at Plymouth Congregational UCC (5301 N Capitol Street NE). Attendees of USSF2010 will share the experience and ideas that they brought back from Detroit — however, this event is open to anyone who wants to work towards a better greater DC. (You can RSVP on Facebook here.)

At the pre-Detroit People’s Movement Assembly here in DC, some attendees had conversations about food justice issues—but there was not yet a PMA group self-organized around the subject. Well I am pleased to report that the signs of food justice movements across the country are strong! The challenges we face are great, but so are our opportunities. (I previously blogged about food sovereignty in Detroit here.)  The USSF2010 Food Justice PMA assembled a diverse and exciting set of people, ideas, and proposals — consolidating it all into one statement to be shared with the broader Social Forum.

So, with hope that food justice/sovereignty will become an active thread of the Greater DC Social Forum process, I’m happy to share the Food Sovereignty People’s Movement Assembly resolution below. Let’s consider this document as we continue our conversation on August 7th and beyond.

Statement from the People’s Movement Assembly on Food Sovereignty, US Social Forum 2010

Over a half-century ago, Mahatma Gandhi led a multitude of Indians to the sea to make salt—in defiance of the British Empire’s monopoly on this resource critical to people’s diet. The action catalyzed the fragmented movement for Indian independence and was the beginning of the end for Britain’s rule over India. The act of “making salt” has since been repeated many times in many forms by people’s movements seeking liberation, justice and sovereignty: Cesar Chavez, Nelson Mandela, and the Zapatistas are just a few of the most prominent examples. Our food movement— one that spans the globe—seeks food sovereignty from the monopolies that dominate our food systems with the complicity of our governments. We are powerful, creative, committed and diverse. It is our time to make salt.

A movement for food sovereignty – the people’s democratic control of the food system, the right of all people to healthy, culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems - is building from every corner of the globe.

We find that our work to build a better food system in the Unites States is inextricably linked to the struggle for workers’ rights, immigrant’s rights, women’s rights, the fight to dismantle racism in our communities, and the struggle for sovereignty in indigenous communities. We find that in order to create a better food system, we must break up the corporate control of our seeds, land, water and natural resources.

Because at a time of record harvests and record profits we have over one billion hungry people on the planet; because poverty is the root cause of hunger; because the world’s oceans are being polluted and plundered, because industrial agriculture contributes one third of all greenhouse gas emissions, because increasing inequality, poverty, hunger, a global land grab, and environmental destruction are threatening the livelihoods of family farmers, farmworkers, fisherfolk, and marginalized communities worldwide; and because community based food systems and agroecological farming can cool the planet, build resilience to climate change, and eliminate poverty;

We therefore commit to re-building local food economies in our own communities, to dismantling structural racism, to democratizing land access, to building opportunities for the leadership of our youth, and to working towards food sovereignty in partnership with social movements around the world;

We call on others in the US to demand an end to the global land grab, to end both corporate and military land occupations, to demand fairer trade, aid and investment policies, land reform, and support for sustainable peasant and community agriculture and sustainable community fisheries;

We endorse actions that include: the liberation of land and water resources for the production of food and sustainable livelihoods; the creation of new structures for cooperative ownership of land and food production, processing and distribution; the integration of labor rights, immigrant’s rights and food justice; the valuing of women as primary food providers, and the denouncement of false solutions and false partnerships addressing climate change, hunger and economic development;

We demand a world in which everyone has control over their food and no one has to put food in their mouth that hurts people or the environment.
Organizations and individuals among us have therefore committed to the following actions:

• Launching a campaign for food sovereignty as a right of the people
• Growing and harvesting as much food as we possibly can everywhere
• Liberating land through reclaiming urban and rural spaces for the production of food for communities; demanding the use of public lands for food production
• Participating in a global campaign against land grabs, in which corporations and governments grab up the lands of communities
• Carrying forward the people’s agenda coming out of the Cochabamba climate summit — including popular education around food and climate justice and promoting sustainable agriculture as a solution to climate change
• Standing with the people of Haiti, Palestine, Honduras, and other countries whose food sovereignty is threatened by political, military, and/or corporate occupation
• Hosting collective meals in our communities as a way of connecting people across generations and cultural backgrounds and as a tool for dismantling racism in the food system
• Forging new models of collective control of land and waterways; assuring legal protection of the commons
• Building the leadership of the next generation; providing opportunities for urban and rural youth to have a future in food and farming
• Rejecting GMOs and other forms of the corporate takeover of our food systems
• Creatively and strategically working to dismantle the corporations who have hijacked the world’s food systems
• Affirming the sovereignty of indigenous peoples in North America and throughout the globe
• Committing our food movements in the US to be active participants in the global movement for food sovereignty and to work to stop our government and corporations from practices that undermine food sovereignty globally.
• Challenging US food and agricultural aid and development policy (e.g., Monsanto and USAID’s recent “donation” of seeds to Haiti)
• Working towards a people’s food and farm bill based on principles of food sovereignty
• Hosting community seed exchanges
• Engaging communities in popular education on GMOs and the role of corporations in our food system
• Engaging communities in popular education on community nutrition and public health
• Creating more community farmers markets that are accessible and affordable to all; affirming everyone’s right to food that is good, safe, healthy, and fair
• Helping everyone understand where their food comes from and who helped bring it to their table
• Highlighting the common struggles between farmers and farmworkers in the US and their counterparts throughout the world

See the official page for this document here. And join us on August 7th to discuss what comes next.

In the round of the zoning update on food issues, I didn’t see fit to submit comments about urban agriculture, even though I guess I should have. Evidently, it’s still gonna be close to impossible to have poultry, not to mention there is little discussion of urban orchards, urban forestry, and other issues, even though people are concerned about “food deserts” and access to fresh foods.

According to the Washington Business Journal, in Cheh introduces “grocery ambassador” bill, Councilmember Mary Cheh has introduced legislation on the topic, calling for a grocery czar amongst other steps, but I think the legislation is somewhat narrowly conceived because this issue is about more than just trying to attract some grocery stores.

The real issue is a comprehensive plan for food security and foodways in the city. Grocery stores are but one piece.

The Community Food Security Coalition is an organization broadly focused on food access. Toronto and a number of other communities across North America have created “Food Policy Councils” to focus on food access at the local level, especially in urban places, and work to make more direct links between urban and rural food policy. (The bookThe Edible City looks broadly at Toronto’s foodways, food policies, and food industries. This paper, Food Policy Councils: The experience of five cities and one county, from 1994 discusses the disconnection of cities from foodways policymaking.)

Food Trust in Philadelphia has pushed food security and initiatives to increase the availability of fresh foods and supermarkets in underserved areas in the city and state.

Finally, the Economic Research Service of the USDA has created aCommunity Food Security Assessment Toolkit which provides a more systematic method for evaluating community food security and a planning framework for improvements.

The issue is tricky.

First, there is a conceptual problem with the food desert issue, because of how new urbanists and such are defining the need for access–a grocery store within easy walking distance–and the reality of how the supermarket industry is organized and focused on providing stores of 50,000+ square feet, serving retail trade areas of 50,000+ residents in a retail trade area five miles in diameter.

The reality is that not every neighborhood is large enough to support a full line grocery store the way that the grocery industry is set up to “deliver” supermarkets. Plus, many people are cost-conscious and end up patronizing stores where prices are lower (as opposed to smaller neighborhood-based stores). And the industry has worked hard at closing smaller, neighborhood stores in favor of larger single stores serving many neighborhoods.

Second, there are many grocery stores accessible to DC residents in neighborhoods that are seemingly understored, but the stores happen to be located just outside of the city in Maryland.

Washington Post image from the 2007 article “Signs of Change Line the Shelves.”

Third, we need to look at farmers markets and public markets more systematicaly as a way to deliver fresh foods to residents, not so much in the higher-income areas of the city, but in the “food desert” areas. Although these areas are hard places to make such markets work if their prices are higher than typical supermarket prices.

Fourth, plus working with store sizes significantly smaller than 50,000 s.f. and with extant companies, from corner stores to affiliates of Murray’s stores, and companies that aren’t necessarily the region’s largest supermarket chains, and independents–finding companies that are innovative and able to understand the center city as a market that is distinct and different from the suburbs.

I don’t know why it is so hard in the U.S. to find a company like Sobey’s, one of Canada’s more innovative suprmarket companies, with a couple divisions focused on center city locations. See “How Sobey’s is taking on Loblaws” from the Toronto Globe & Mail and “Grocery chains develop a taste for urban living” from the Toronto Star.

Fifth, related to both 3 and 4 concerns how such entities are organized. A faux “public market” with 10-15 different vendors, along the lines of how Baltimore’s Belvedere Square is organized, is a way to assist the development of retail entrepreneurialism as well as extend food access by working with smaller entities to offer “departments” within a common space, where the overall effect is the creation of a complete array of food offerings, but through multiple businesses rather than only one.

Sixth, not to mention nutrition education. The issue isn’t merely access to nutritious food, but actually purchasing and eating such food. For a number of years, I have recommended that demonstration-teaching kitchens be incorporated into Eastern Market and Florida Market, as a way to teach better nutrition.

Seventh, plus urban agriculture, including community gardening, orchards, and forestry.

—–
I suppose I just put myself out of the running for the grocery ambassador position…

How much food could you buy for $16 per month?  Furthermore, what could you buy for $16 that would be nutritious and didn’t involve fast food joints?  For too many individuals in our community, the $16 thought experiment is actually a reality.  As of April 2009, the minimum SNAP (formerly food stamps) benefit is $16 per month. Sadly, this is an increase from the previous minimum of $14 per month.

So, how are SNAP recipients to cope? The good news is that with a bit of planning, $16 can go a lot further at the grocery store than you might think!  Join the Capital Area Food Bank’s Director of Nutrition Education, Jodi Balis, on July 22nd as she facilitates an interactive workshop on how individuals can stretch their food budget–and still eat nutritious meals. This workshop is aimed at service providers as they seek to communicate healthy eating on a budget to clients.

The Nutritious $16 Food Bag
11am-1pm on Thursday, July 22^nd
George Mason Regional Library
7001 Little River Turnpike
Annandale, VA 22003

Click here to register for this free workshop.

If you are interested in other free workshops offered by the Capital Area Food Bank, check out this website or send an e-mail to aaa@capitalareafoodbank.org.

The workshop will start with a short film about seed saving, include a bit of an introduction about its history, and then go into a practical, hands-on workshop. If all goes well, you should be bringing some seeds home to plant in the future. If you already have experience with seed saving, come along as well. We’d love for you to share your expertise.

Date: Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Time: 7-9 PM
Location: Emergence Community Arts Collective, 2nd floor, 733 Euclid Street NW, Washington DC

Please contact ecolocitydc@gmail.com for questions or visit our website at ecolocity.ning.com. We hope to see you there!

lean

Common Good City Farm

Over the past year, Bread for the City has worked to expand our gleaning program to provide fresh, local produce to our clients. We are kicking off this season with a Glean for the City event on Saturday, July 17th and we need your help! We will travel to Parker Farms in Colonial Beach, VA. Join us in the fields, and help collect more than a ton of delicious sweet corn for our food pantry. The event will last from 9am to 2pm, including driving time. For more information, please contact Vince Hill.
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After weeks of unforgettable heat, the day dawned fresh and inviting, just the type of weather we needed for our first ever client gleaning project at Common Good City Farm. Sure enough, the day turned out to be educational, delicious, and fun.
Common Good City Farm, located about a half a mile from BFC’s NW center, is a neighborhood farm dedicated to raising awareness about food and food justice in DC. In addition to selling some of their produce to local restaurants, CGCF runs programs and workshops for low-income volunteers and school-aged children, as well as the curious, casual gardener. Several clients expressed interest in Common Good’s “Green Tomorrows” program, which provides a bag of fresh produce to low-income residents in exchange for two or more hours per week of instructional, hands-on work on the farm.
Spencer Ellsworth and the other staff at Common Good City Farm generously took time to share their knowledge of urban gardening, basic plant care and food preparation.

Spencer Ellsworth, our CGCF guide for the day

They weren’t the only ones ready to teach. Antoinette Jones, a grandmother born and raised in North Carolina, was one of the stars of the day. A long time client, Ms. Jones embodied the excitement and enthusiasm of our volunteers, waxing lyrical about a childhood in the country and the joys of gardening. She helped to make everyone feel at home in the garden, more specifically the cabbage patch. She taught everyone, even Spencer, a thing or two about how to keep your cabbages healthy and how to get the most out of your plants.
“It’s too late in the year for another [cabbage] head to grow, so you pop them out like collard greens…cut ‘em, clean ‘em, throw ‘em in the pot with a piece of meat, whatever you got and it taste just like collard greens!” Even if down home cooking isn’t your thing, Ms. Jones had some money-saving advice we could all use. “How many know how to make spices from the tops of your vegetables?” She asked the group as we rested in the shade. She patiently explained how to dry and prepare the tops of vegetables to make the spices normally sold for $7 or $8 dollars at the supermarket; chive from spring onions and a parsley substitute from carrot tops. “And now, what you’d buy in the store for $8 somethin’ dollars, you made it for free!”

Ms. Jones shows another client how to pull cabbage

But wisdom doesn’t always come from the most experienced among us. One of our clients, India, brought along her son and daughter at their expressed wish. “I told them about the trip and they were so excited…we love fruits and vegetables so anything they can dig up out of the ground, that’s good for them.” Antonio, 10, and Ania, 4, were a testament to their mother’s pride, ducking excitedly from patch to patch, pleading to be allowed to cut, pull, or dig something. “What can I do next?!” was a near constant chorus from the siblings and Ms. Jone’s young granddaughter Kayla.

Ania, 4, was our youngest gleaner of the day

These kids defy stereotypes; not only do they love healthy foods, but Antonio proclaimed his favorite vegetable to be broccoli! Kayla couldn’t contain her enthusiasm. “Whatever is green is good and I am going to eat it!” she declared amidst the still-tender squash beds. Ania’s enchantment was enough to capture the hearts of the entire group, as she pulled out a few my-size-beets and laid them gently in the bins to be brought back to Bread for the City with an ecstatic “Yeah!”.

The joy was palpable as our clients cut kale, pulled carrots and and clipped cucumbers to replace the canned goods that ordinarily adorn our food bags in the NW center.

Many of our clients were especially touched when they brought the gleaned produce back to our NW food pantry and saw how their hard work would translate into better food for them and their fellow clients. “This is so wonderful,” remarked one client. “”I’ve been [wanting] to volunteer for BFC for a long time! It’s great to pick produce for the pantry! We need to do this again!”

We ended the day tasting just-ripe peaches and discussing the meals people would make with the food they had picked with their own hands. BFC’s nutrition consultant Sharon Gruber spoke about the importance of “eating with the seasons,” using all the parts of the fruit and vegetables, and how to maximize your spending potential at farmer’s markets.

Many clients expressed an interest in returning to CGCF. None had heard of the urban farm before this trip, and all were impressed at the scale, scope, and mission of the organization’s work. Despite the convenient location of the community garden, few clients were aware of the possibilities that lay in this once-fallow field. Upon seeing the farm for the first time, one client remarked, “I never knew this garden was here! This is so cool to have right in our backyard!”

As we gathered for a picture to commemorate what we hope will be the first of many opportunities for our clients to be an active part of Bread, Kayla summed up our feelings in a way only a child can. “What a perfect picture for a perfect day!”

Our first ever client gleaners!

Welcome to Kwanzaa (Swahili for first harvest) Kitchen, an outreach program of St.George’s Episcopal Church. It began in 1992, as the Breakfast Program. Modeled after the Black Panthers’ free breakfast programs for children in California, Kwanzaa Kitchen was started and continues, under Janis Evans (the St George’s Outreach Chair, and program coordinator for Kwanzaa Kitchen), to serve breakfast, every other Saturday morning, to the needy and the homeless.

In addition to the cooked items, grapefruit juice (right now, it’s cheaper than apple or orange juices), cereal (today, Honey Nut Cherrios), milk, and occasionally, fresh fruit are also offered.

Before breakfast is served, a count is taken of how many “first-timers” (breakfast diners) are present and how many “carry-outs” each would like. Each diner is entitled to up to three “carry-outs,” or a Styrofoam to-go container filled with three-pancakes, two strips of bacon, and a heaping spoon-full of eggs; syrup, butter, and utensils in the bag.

At 09:00am, Janis walks into the dinning room to welcome the guests and to read a scripture. Today, it was about love (1 Corinthians 13). “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres…”

Patrons are then served a plate of two pancakes, two strips of bacon, and a heaping spoon of eggs (or any requested combination of the foods mentioned). After all are served, those not wishing to ‘dine-in’ may pick up a carry-out meal. All left-over food is donated to shelters in the area. Replace the word love in the quotation above with the word food, and it illustrates the unique outreach of Kwanzaa Kitchen.

Food is patient, food is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Food does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres…
…as have those that have consumed breakfast from Kwanzaa Kitchen; particularly, given the substantial demographic transition that has occurred in the area over the past few years. Primarily, housing prices have increased, access to affordable housing options have decreased, and some shelters have closed.

Kwanzaa Kitchen may have served around 200 meals (~50 “first timers”) this past Saturday, but these numbers are above average in recent years. Perhaps, more area residents’ are acquiring food or breakfast through other means than in the past. But given the tough financial times and few places to purchase affordable foods or meals in the area this is unlikely.

Meanwhile, Janis has observed that “a lot of the indigenous residents have been pushed out. I very rarely see black children playing in the neighborhood anymore. I even think that Metro’s elimination of the paper bus token to ride the bus after you get off the train may have kept some patrons from getting to the breakfast because they can’t afford to buy a monthly bus pass.”

It is “the people,” or the camaraderie among volunteers and the warmth of the diners that keeps the volunteers coming back. Likewise, it is clear that patrons come back because, as one patron explains, “[Kwanzaa Kitchen is] like a restaurant to me, good service, beautiful ladies, very clean place, don’t have drama up in here, lots of respect, morals and values. People respect one another, say, ‘may I or can I.’”

Ideally, maybe one day, Kwanzaa Kitchen will be a real restaurant; also for and by the people. And may it not need to exist to fill a gap in America’s social service system.

• 43% of students enrolled in city public schools are overweight or obese — one of the highest rates in the nation
• The District Government spends more than $400 million annually to treat obesity
• Childhood obesity causes diabetes, hypertension, liver disease, sleep apnea, heart disease and is linked with higher rates of cardiovascular disease and certain types of cancer, and can lead to an early death
• For children, each extra can or glass of sugar-sweetened beverage consumed per day increases their chance of becoming obese by 60 percent

What’s a Solution?
On May 4, 2010 the DC City Council unanimously passed a groundbreaking piece of legislation called the ‘DC Healthy Schools Act’ to do more to ensure the health and wellness of District school children. This legislation:

• Increases access to healthier food in schools – the act raises nutritional standards for school meals to include more whole grains, a wider variety of fruits and vegetables including those that are locally grown. It eliminates the reduced-price co-payment for lunch, and provides free breakfast in all schools with breakfast served in the classroom in schools with high poverty rates;
• Raises the bar for physical, health, and nutrition education – sets a goal of 60 minutes of physical activity for students each day and triples the amount of physical and health education;
• Establishes school-based environmental and gardening programs – recycling, energy-reduction, lead water and paint testing, and other environmental programs.

Given the current budgetary constraints, Councilmember Mary Cheh has proposed funding the Healthy Schools Act with a penny-per-ounce soda tax. Revenue from this tax would raise enough money to fund the Healthy Schools Act and will support:

• Food access initiatives,
• Community and faith-based anti-obesity programs, and
• Nutritional programs for seniors

Tax Myths
This tax is nothing new.  Currently, 33 states, including Maryland and Virginia, tax sugar-sweetened beverages. Recent polls have demonstrated that over 70 percent of the city’s population supports implementing the soda tax.  Beverages that would not be taxed include:

• Diet drinks and other non-caloric beverages would not be taxed
• Beverages containing milk, milk alternatives, and greater than 70 percent fruit or vegetable juice would not be taxed

How You Can Make A Difference

We need your help to convince DC’s Council to fund the Healthy Schools Act and other community initiatives.

Stand for healthy children and healthy communities by contacting your Councilmember and signing our petition at www.supporthealthyschools.org.  Support healthy kids now!

I wanted to let you know that the Kojo Namdi Show (WAMU 88.5) will be focusing on the growing Backyard Hen movement around the country tomorrow (Thursday) from 12:00 to 1:00. They will be interviewing Pat Foreman, the author of City Chicks, as well as an urban farmer from Brooklyn and myself. Let your friends know. It should be a good program. If you can’t listen to it live, you can always stream it online after the show.

In early June we’ll be setting up tables at a few farmers’ markets around the city to collect more petition signers. As a special treat, elementary school kids from 5 classes in Capitol Hill will be showing off their recently hatched chicks and talking about what they’ve learned by hatching and raising chicks. We’re looking for more volunteers to help man the tables for two hour shifts. Let me know if you want to participate and we’ll find a time and place that works for you.

Other good news on the chicken front is that we’re meeting with the Mayor’s Office next week to talk about how to move our legislative changes forward. We’ll let you know what comes out of that meeting.

Thanks,

Caryn

Email dcfoodforall@gmail.com for more information or to get involved!

What better way to end the day than by uncovering local food powerhouses in the Nation’s Capital! On Wednesday, April 21, 2010, the USDA and HHS Centers for Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships convened to visit two jewels located in Washington, DC: Common Good City Farm of Ledroit Park and Healthy Solutions of Anacostia.

Common Good City Farm is an urban farm and education center growing food for low-income residents in the city and providing educational opportunities for all people to increase food security, and improve human health and environmental sustainability.  Common Good City Farm was funded in part by a National Institute for Food and Agriculture Community Food Project Grant.

The University of the District of Columbia’s 4-H Club has just partnered with the farm to help their kids learn to grow and eat healthy food.  Supported by USDA, the goal of the 4-H program is to assist young people in developing knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will enable them to become self-directing, responsible, productive citizens.  Common Good City Farm has been successful in part due to strong partnerships with organizations like the 4-H Club, as well as community support from organizations like the Advisory Neighborhood Commission and Mount Bethel Baptist Church.

Next, we journeyed across the river to visit a Healthy Solutions youth cooking class. Started by Tanikka Cunningham, Healthy Solutions’ mission is to promote healthy lifestyles in underserved communities.  The students cooked up and ate four delicious dishes that included a fruit salad, a mesclun spring salad, an eggplant pasta sauce, and a tri-colored pasta dish.

Healthy Solutions works in Alabama, North Carolina, and Washington, DC to create community-based food systems that allow access to healthy affordable foods.  The organization also focuses on agricultural job creation and training, healthy living education, and youth development.  Healthy Solutions operates a produce coop in DC and sells food to local corner shops in the neighborhood.

There are only three major chain grocery stores east of the Anacostia River, so the impact of Healthy Solutions, which brings 10,000 pounds of fresh produce into these communities each month, is critical.  The Obama Administration’s proposed Healthy Food Financing Initiativewould send more resources to help bring access to affordable, fresh, and healthy food to communities like Anacostia.

Cross-posted from the USDA blog