Archive for the ‘Organizations’ Category

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Healthy Solutions for the Common Good right here in DC

Posted by | May 4th, 2010

By Tasha Askew, National Hunger Fellow, and Julie Curti, Acting Deputy Director, USDA Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships


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.


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Grow A Row off to an ex-”seedingly” good start!

Posted by | April 30th, 2010

We are really excited this year about the buzz around gardens. From the White House garden and the First Lady’s “Let’s Move!” campaign to the recent Community Food Security Panel, there has been talk locally and nationally about urban gardening. Here at the Capital Area Food Bank we have had a dramatic increase in the number of folks stepping up to donate produce from their gardens to our Grow A Row program.

Grow A Row got started last summer as gardeners called to see if we could take their extra produce. Not only does the food bank warehouse accept produce donations, but Grow A Row pairs gardeners with non-profit organizations in their neighborhood to form a produce partnership. The program starts in April and runs through November and spans the entire D.C. metro area. Right now we are in the midst of pairing produce partners and are really excited that we already have lots of new gardeners on board.

We are inspired by a group that has stepped into the role of gardener for Grow A Row this year: schoolchildren! We have three schools growing produce in their schoolyard gardens. Holton-Arms school in Bethesda decided to take part in Grow A Row after attending a “Face Hunger” hunger advocacy and awareness class taught by our very own Advocacy Coordinator, Amanda Melara. Georgetown Day School will donate produce to Grow A Row through a new aftercare gardening class that includes cooking lessons by Slow Cook blogger, Ed Bruske. Bancroft Elementary school is also participating in the Grow A Row program as a natural extension of their participation in Local Flavor Week and their work in the White House garden with Chef Sam Kass and First Lady Michelle Obama. All three schools are doing really exciting work around nutrition, garden education, and working to feed their neighbors in need.

Inspired? Check out the Grow A Row website for details and email us at growarow@capitalareafoodbank.org to sign up!

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Save the Date: Volunteer at DC Central Kitchen with the DC Food for All

Posted by | April 27th, 2010

Join DC Food for All folks for an evening volunteer shift at DC Central Kitchen!


Thursday May 13, 5-8pm
425 Second Street NW



We’ll kick things off with a short discussion about DCCK’s efforts to source local produce from 5-5:30. Then we’ll get to prepping!

During co-op shifts, volunteers help prep fresh produce from local farms for use in the 4,500 meals that the

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Common Good City Farm seeks new Executive Director

Posted by | April 15th, 2010

Common Good City FarmCommon Good City Farm, a 3-year old 501(c)(3) urban farm and education center located in the LeDroit Park neighborhood in Washington, DC, is accepting applications for its Executive Director job opening.

The ideal candidate is energetic, with a passionate commitment to the mission, vision and goals of Common Good. We are searching for applicants who have experience in working with sustainable food systems, urban agriculture, food and nutrition, or other relevant issues. We are seeking a proven leader and motivator with organizational development as well as staff and volunteer management skills. As the leader of the organization’s fundraising strategies and initiatives, the candidate must demonstrate prior fund-raising and grant-writing success. S/he should possess proven experience working in a diverse urban environment, with the ability to reach low-income families as well as urban professionals.

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DC Guerilla Gardeners First-Ever Event!

Posted by | April 13th, 2010

When I found out that guerilla gardeners were about to descend on our fair city, I decided to investigate. Theresa, who help found DC Guerilla Gardeners, told me about their first-ever event – coming up this Sunday – and how the group came to be. Read on:

The D.C. Guerilla Gardeners is brand new. I started it because I’ve been interested in urban gardening and guerilla gardening but there didn’t seem to be any groups in the area that were geared toward this type of activity.

I honestly think that my interest in urban gardening is the result of my love of graffiti and street art

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Growing seeds at the Neighborhood Farm Initiative

Posted by | March 18th, 2010

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At the Neighborhood Farm Initiative, we’re planting seeds. Today it was tomatoes, eggplant, seven varieties of peppers. The first collard leaves are already round and reaching toward the sun.

We’re also planting seeds of a different kind: we’re teaching people to grow food. Starting in April, Program Director Bea Trickett will lead a series of workshops that will take DC residents from preparing soil to pruning tomatoes. Each participant tends her own plot at our site near Fort Totten and takes home the fruits – and vegetables – of his labor.

Read the full post Posted in Access, Events, Organizations, urban agriculture

Bread for the City: Client Choice 2.0

Posted by | March 17th, 2010

We recently took the first step in an exciting new direction for our food pantry: opening up our menu so that clients can choose which foods they receive.

This first experiment (conducted on Jan 28th) received glowing feedback from clients, who really appreciated being able to select the items in their grocery bag. It was also, however, far from practical: the average time it took to distribute each bag – from the moment a client was called to the moment they walked away with their bag – was 12 minutes. (Our pantry’s normal average “cycle time” is 4 minutes.)

Carefully examining the results of this experiment, we arrived at 2 primary goals for our client choice endeavor: reduce cycle time and increase client-volunteer interaction. Our hunch was that these objectives can be best achieved together.

So last week, we took our second step in this great experiment.

This time, instead of our staff accompanying clients as they “shopped” through the pantry, we assigned volunteers to specific food stations. (These volunteers came from Elizabethtown College on alternative spring break). These helpers would greet each client at each station, politely explain the options and help clients load their bags.

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Social Enterprise: The Third Sector in Serving Community

Posted by | March 9th, 2010

In the face of our current economic downturn, as funding streams from foundations, corporations, and governments grow weaker, the question many non-profit organizations are asking is: how else can we generate revenue to support our mission?

In the traditional models, non-profits provided services to the community while businesses focused solely on maximizing profit — and then donated a percentage back to non-profit organizations of their choice. As a new generation of entrepreneurs emerge, social enterprise blurs the line between profit and social mission. For-profits are becoming more socially and environmentally conscious and non-profits are becoming less dependent on grants by generating revenue to support their social mission.

I walk in both the for-profit and non-profit worlds and see the benefits that each sector brings to social enterprise. In this social enterprise blog series, I’ll share examples of those who are reinventing business and social mission into this third sector. My first example describes how a non-profit organization and a for-profit business collaborate to leverage their strengths and financial sustainability.

Mission Pie

Let’s Eat Pie!

Pie Ranch and Mission Pie share several commonalities: a devotion to pie, a founding member, a mission that includes youth education, and sustainable food production. Yet they were individually conceived and launched, and they succeed with different legal structures. Their autonomy and clarity of purpose is a critical element in framing their collaboration, and their differences yield some unique synergy where their missions overlap.

Pie Ranch is a non-profit farm that sits on two 14-acre triangular pieces of land along the central California coast. It offers a sustainable working farm and a food system education to urban and rural high school students and community members, mentors young adult farmers and marketing apprentices, and catalyzes strategic land use collaboration to maintain a healthy and vibrant agriculture in the region.

Mission Pie is a for-profit pie shop located in the Mission District of San Francisco. This women-owned business is committed to local sourcing, at-risk youth training for work readiness, and eco-consciousness in their café and operations.

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