Posts Tagged ‘Access’

Posted by Alicia Camden | March 21st, 2011

[Cross-posted from Capital Area Food Bank]

Whether you’re a master gardener or a terrified newcomer to backyard gardening (like me), you can help the Capital Area Food Bank relieve hunger with your extra squash and tomatoes.

The Grow a Row program connects D.C., Virginia and Maryland gardeners with CAFB partner organizations in their neighborhoods, creating “produce partnerships” that bring more nutritious fruits and vegetables to underserved communities.

We’ll set you up with someone who’s doing some good in your community, someplace where you’ll hopefully get a chance to see the positive difference your donation makes. Not only will you have someplace for that inevitable overabundance of one-thing-or-another, you’ll be a part of relationships that build stronger communities.

You’ll provide underserved communities with a resource they desperately need but have little access to. You’ll enjoy the unique satisfaction of filling a need while enjoying a stress-reducing, money-saving, earth-friendly hobby.

Best of all, you’ll get this great sign for your garden! For free!

You don’t need to quit your day job to grow food for the hungry. Whatever the size of your donation, we’ll find you a partner that will get your produce into the homes and onto the tables of your neighbors in need.

For more information, contact Alicia Camden at growarow@capitalareafoodbank.org

Posted by Allison Burket | October 5th, 2010

Last Monday, DC Food For All gathered for our monthly community meal and workshop at the Center for Green Urbanism in downtown Ward 7. Our host, Dennis Chestnut, the Executive Director of Groundwork Anacostia, gave us an overview of Groundwork’s programming, as well as a tour the newly-opened Center.

Dennis’ organization, Groundwork Anacostia, is part of a larger network of “trusts” established across the country through Groundwork USA to help revitalize neighborhoods whose physical and social environments have undergone significant decline. Supported by the EPA’s Brownfields program, as well as the National Park Service, Groundwork aims to empower individuals in communities typically identified as under-served to engage in their community’s environmental, social, and economic revitalization, largely by identifying and converting brownfields (a term for abandoned facilities or unused land that may have been damaged or polluted by industrial use) into greenfields.For Dennis, who has been an environmental activist and community organizer since his days as a Boy Scout, “under-served” is a relative term. Despite Ward 7′s limited food access, public services, and commercial development, Dennis considers the small-town feel of the surrounding community and asset, and the abundance of open space as an opportunity to take some of the food access challenges of into their own hands.

Since formally launching in 2009, Groundwork Anacostia has helped establish numerous community gardens as well as a gardening club, now led by the senior community in Mayfair apartment complexes who lack land of their own to garden. As part of the 10.10.10 day of work and action around climate change, Groundwork will be launching a garden at the Mayfair Community Center, which Dennis hopes will also be the site of a farmers’ market accompanied by cooking classes and community events in the spring. The Community Center is located in a neighborhood between the river and the highway whose options for purchasing are currently limited to a convenience store.

Groundwork has been involved in numerous other efforts, such as lead the calls for the Benning Library across the street from the center to be renovated into a green building. Now a LEED-silver buidling, this library is the first DC public facility with a green roof. Groundwork will also work to ensure the 12-acre site of a nearby Pepco power plant that is scheduled to come offline within the next couple of years, will be remediated for public use, rather than sold to developers.

Groundwork was also instrumental in establishing the site for our evening’s meal: The Center for Green Urbanism – a “green business incubator” that acts as model and a hub for sustainable living and green enterprise in Ward 7. With an art gallery featuring reused and recycled materials, offices for rent for small businesses, meeting spaces for community groups and organizations, and a green interior design that includes everything from low-flow fixtures to solar shade window treatments, Dennis hopes the center can serve as place where folks can come and learn everything they need to know about living sustainably. The center has also hosted youth volunteer and employment programs involving the neighboring Fort Mahan park. During our tour of the renovated house originally built in 1926 and located at the edge of, we also got to admire the stellar views of downtown DC from its back porch.

The Center will be having its grand opening on October 15, formally launching its art gallery and “ReCREATE” exhibit. In the meantime, DC Food For All was grateful for its hospitality and fabulous water filtration system (“best water in the district,” Dennis promises). We shared fresh-baked bread and muffins, homemade lentil salad, plum dip, and ricotta spread, and discussed upcoming events – the 10.10.10 global work party, as well as meetings about the FEED DC Act, legislation introduced this summer. A public hearing on the Act will take place October 18, preceded by public working groups.

Join DC Food For All at any and all of these upcoming events – especially the 10.10.10 work day at Mayfair Community Center (3744 1/2 Hayes Street N.E.) Volunteers will help build build raised beds, lay soil, and learn about community gardening techniques and strategies. They need 15-20 volunteers to get down and dirty. The action will be from 9am-12pm, followed by rides back to Bread for the City NW for the Sustainable Food Block Party! (Learn more here)

For more on the Center for Green Urbanism, visit its website or contact Dennis Chestnut at Dchestn@msn.com.

Posted by Kristin Roberts | August 31st, 2010

[Cross posted from Defeat Poverty DC.] What does access to healthy foods have to do with defeating poverty? Not only does the presence of affordable fresh food in a community have the potential to improve residents’ nutrition and overall health, but attracting full-service grocery stores also can boost the local economy – grocery retail creates [...]

Posted by Jonna McKone | April 20th, 2010

The sentiment repeatedly voiced by the speakers at Friday’s national panel on building local food security was “this is the best panel I’ve ever been on.” The statement held true for the audience as well, which included residents of DC, activists, gardeners, nutritionists, community leaders, and others. The panel drew points of connection and parallel themes between disparate initiatives in Washington, DC and some highly successful projects and movements in other regions of the country.

In the audience were quite a few leaders from Ward 8, where the event was being held – but they were outnumbered by predominately white people from other parts of the city. This, however, may reflect the cultural state of awareness of food issues, rather than shortcomings on behalf of the panel organizers, who outreached aggressively in the communities that lacked representation at the panel.

The panel represented several generations and fields of work. Maurice Small works in Cleveland, Ohio acting as the link between farmers and buyers. Malik Yakini is leading the urban agriculture movement in Detroit through a number of initiatives — in particular, he directs the Nsoroma Institute Public School Academy, an African-Centered elementary and middle school. He has also started a two-acre farm in downtown Detroit. Both are community organizers and farmers — but first and foremost, they reminded us, they are educators.

Michael Heller is a farmer who transformed a tobacco and corn farm into a 285-acre livestock and vegetable operation in Upper Marlboro, Maryland. He brought to the panel his perspective on scaling up urban farming as well as fostering community development within the framework of large scale agriculture in the U.S. He explained how Claggett Farm partners with Capital Area Food Bank to strengthen the link between farms and low-income communities. He also helped found Future Harvest, an organization integral to building the capacity of farmers in the Chesapeake reason.

Robert Egger, author of Begging for change, is currently doing research on food as a tactic for social change, and is president of DC Central Kitchen. During the talk he brought the work of food activists into the context of a movement – he called it “the currency of something different.” People want less money and instead people are seeking happiness and community, and food manifests just the tip of that change.

Carolina Valencia reseachers economic issues through her work for Social Compact, focusing on the informal cash economy, food access and small business development. She spoke to the market dynamics that underpin all of this work — and also reminded us that government officials themselves should be part of the conversation, as they can facilitate or obstruct so much of what’s possible.

The panel was moderated by a researcher from Michigan State University, Cheryl Danley, who was the technical assistant for the Kellogg-funded Food and Fitness Initiative. (She also went to kindergarden with Malik.)

The first question from the audience matched the tone of the panel: “What brings you to this work?”

Posted by Brynn Slate | February 12th, 2010

Get ready to be rocked to your roots. Robert Egger has a record of putting ideas into action and after hearing his presentation at Rooting DC on February 20, you’ll be inspired to jump out of your chair and get to work. This dynamic go-getter founded DC Central Kitchen in 1989 by connecting the dots between food need and food waste—a landmark idea at the time. The organization now produces 4,000 meals a day for Washington’s hungry and provides cycle-breaking education and support through its Culinary Job Training program.

Egger knows DC’s foodscape intimately. In addition to furthering the success of DC Central Kitchen, he chairs the Mayor’s Commission on Nutrition and is actively working to get more local food into schools. His talk at Rooting DC (“Breaking through the Barriers—The Business of Better Food for All,” from 11:45 to 12:45) will spread his infectious enthusiasm for food equality by laying out ideas for what could come next—if we work for it.

As a frequent traveler, Egger speaks to groups around the country and observes other cities’ unique problems, as well as their bold initiatives. He started The Campus Kitchens Project as a replicable model that’s been implemented by 20 universities across the US. As he travels, he keeps an eye out for trends that could become lasting solutions. “Trends are potential. Trends are maybes,” he says.

Posted by gplotkin | January 14th, 2010

Even though I’ve lived in Washington, DC for more than five years now and have tried to become knowledgeable about the food scene in the city, last weekend was my first trip the Maine Avenue Fish Market, also referred to as “The Wharf” by many locals.

While the market is certainly not a secret — its been a neighborhood favorite for more than two centuries — to tourists it’s virtually unknown, and even most transplanted DC residents have no idea there’s a fresh fish market located conspicuously under an I-395 overpass, just blocks from the Capitol.