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.
This post is the fourth in a series from Bread for the City intern Allison Burket exploring the basics of food, hunger, and politics in the District.
In my previous post about food and hunger in the District, I began to explore the political landscape of DC’s food system. We learned there is no shortage of DC agencies that shape how we get food – at least 13 agencies deal with food in our city! – yet no one agency or governing body is responsible for ensuring that DC residents have access to healthy, affordable food.
Meanwhile, moving beyond the public sector, there are numerous efforts throughout the food system to ensure DC residents can enjoy healthy and affordable food.
What if they and others could work together better to tackle the interconnected issues of nutrition, employment, poverty, hunger, and the degradation of our environment? What if these groups had a unified voice in the halls of City Council?
A Food Policy Council in DC?
Cities across the country face similar challenges as those in DC – a fractured food policy-making environment, separate organizations addressing different pieces of a broken food system, and lack of transparency and community input in policy decisions. In response, many areas have brought together some combination of non-governmental organizations, citizens, advocates, and government, forming what are often known as food policy councils. (See this DC Food For All post about the Detroit food movement, and the policy council in that city.)
Food policy councils can serve as a forum for food issues, a network to coordinate community action, and a space to address some of the tangible injustices at work in our food system. They do a wide range of work in other cities, counties, and states — from gathering and communicating information about a food system, to crafting policy platforms, to developing collaborative projects to address immediate needs.
Bread for the City is interested in seeing something like a food policy council form in DC, but we also recognize that it will need to include more than policy wonks and non-profit providers if it is to be truly reflective of the interests of our diverse communities. A food policy council would ideally be born of a grassroots, city-wide movement for wellness and food sovereignty that includes residents who themselves have the most at stake in radically changing the food system.
That’s why we’re part of a larger conversation with groups like Groundwork Anacostia, the Early Childhood Obesity Prevention Collaborative, Ecolocity, and ONE DC. Together, we’re hosting a series of brainstorming sessions around the city, starting 3:30-4:30 pm this Saturday at Coolidge High School, as part of Rooting DC – an annual, free urban gardening forum. (Register for Rooting DC by calling 202-638-1649, or learn more about the whole conference by visiting the website.)
We’ll be discussing and envisioning: What would it look like for all DC residents had access to healthy, affordable, and culturally appropriate food? What is an idea you have for moving the city, your neighborhood, or your self in that direction? The hope is that the discussion generated from this and upcoming sessions can then shape the formation something like a food policy council – or something completely new and different – in DC. We hope to see you there!
Posted in Action, Community, Events, Food Security, Government Issues, Health, urban agriculture
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.
Here’s a thought experiment:
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 22nd
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 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?”
By Matt Young
I’ve recently arrived in Washington from a place a whole world apart, New Mexico, and I’m still delving into how community works in the District. While my Congressional work to date has suggested a less than transparent, if not detached, relationship between the halls of power and the residents of the District, Rooting DC has given me a whole new perspective on the vibrant, stirring, service-driven nature of Washington, DC
The event brought together hundreds of activists, chefs, gardeners, farmers, community organizers, students, nonprofit professionals, and even politicians to bring a fully-integrated local food system to fruition. It represents a growing movement in D.C. to collaborate on how a local food system should look.
I found myself not just learning how to make a seasonal winter salad from Niko Welch; how to can lusciously spice-packed carrots from Liz Falk; how to realize and sustain a sustainable business model from Robert Egger; how to build kitchen connections between Mennonite farmers and inner-city youth from Kristin Roberts; and how to continually and passionately push for social change and a community voice from Andrea Northrup, Carl Rollins, and Parisa Norouzi.
I also learned that as disconnected as Capitol Hill may be from the rest of the District of Columbia and the country at large, that optimism, transparency, accountability, innovation, responsibility, and community exists at the level of grassroots food systems. Such values provide the root base not only for healthy produce and stewardship, but healthy societies and healthy ecologies.
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.
