Artwork stating 'Education Destroys Barriers', 'We Demand Treatment', and 'I Need A Chance'

Search Results

You searched for: -

There are 721 results  for your search.  View and Refine Your Search Terms

  • Meet three Black-owned grocery delivery services bringing fresh food to your door during the pandemic

    Chicago-based grocery delivery services are alleviating the hardship faced by those who live in food deserts. Black and brown communities with limited access to groceries were hit especially hard during COVID-19, when shelves were emptied out by those who could afford to stock up. Black-owned grocery delivery meets a crucial need in a community that has limited access to fresh produce. The service is also able to deliver hard-to-find ingredients and is a comforting presence in neighborhoods that are braced for another possible wave of the virus, potentially making the upcoming winter especially difficult.

    Read More

  • A culturally inclusive food bank is ‘Feeding el Pueblo'

    Alimentando el Pueblo (Feeding el Pueblo) is a pop-up food bank, started in response to Covid-19, that offers food staples for Latinx dishes. A Mexican, Central American, and Caribbean food box option, with 12 lbs. of fresh food, is filled with food from local farmers and markets, and funded by a GoFundMe account. Families can get a box every two weeks and the food bank has given food to 198 families, or about 936 people. The culturally relevant food has been an important source of comfort and support for many community members, particularly people who are prohibited from accessing federal assistance.

    Read More

  • Just What the Doctor Ordered: Produce Prescriptions are More Important—and Popular—Than Ever. Audio icon

    Produce prescription programs across the United States are seeing a resurgence in activity due to the COVID-19 pandemic. These programs provide healthy foods at a subsidized price to patients with chronic health issues. For example, the VeggieRx program in Chicago used to give out up to 70 boxes of fruits and veggies a week, but now they’re up to 160 boxes a week. While studies have shown that these programs can have a positive impact on patients' health, insurance companies usually only pay for patients to participate in them for a short period of time, so the health benefits might be limited.

    Read More

  • The Kitchen Garden Series upends the textiles industry by reviving an old Philly tradition: producing local linen

    A former costume designer and a farmer in Pennsylvania are partnering together to grow flax to produce their own linen. Since the fashion and textiles industries produce a lot of waste, the duo are reviving the crop that was traditionally grown in the area to raise awareness on the importance of a strong local textile supply chain. While harvesting the crop can be labor intensive and they don’t plan on making a profit from it this year, they hope to show that growing flax could be a staple crop in urban agriculture.

    Read More

  • Homegrown

    Federal funding helped local food producers expand their operations to include processing plants which enables farmers to meet the demand of Montanans who sought an alternative to the empty grocery store shelves. The lack of processing plants has caused a bottleneck in the local food supply chain, a sore point which was amplified when the pandemic disrupted international supply chains, sending shoppers to their neighborhood farms. Small operators rarely have their own processing plants and must outsource that step in order to take their products to market.

    Read More

  • Will Community Gardens Survive Pandemic Budget Cuts?

    The ability of community gardens to supply healthy food to those who might not have their basic needs met has grown in importance as coronavirus continues to spread across the United States. For example, the New Roots community gardening initiative in Salt Lake City helps nearly 150 refugee families raise food on plots, and about 86 percent of the gardeners report saving an average of $30 a week by growing their own food. However, the future of this program, and others around the country in New York City, Seattle, and Minneapolis, are uncertain as they face budget cuts from cities amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

    Read More

  • How A Healer, An Artist And A Chef Are Fighting For Black Food Sovereignty In South LA

    To ensure that Black communities have access to healthy food, three people in Los Angeles are taking different approaches to promote food security and food sovereignty. As part of Feed Black Futures, Ali Anderson packs nearly 100 boxes a week of fruits and vegetables to deliver to Black women and caregivers who have been impacted by incarceration. Artist Lauren Halsey and her Summaeverythang Community Center deliver up to 1,000 boxes a week of free organic produce. Chef Kat Williams is also making sure Black people of the LGBT community have access to healthy meals.

    Read More

  • How This N.Y. Island Went From Tourist Hot Spot to Emergency Garden Audio icon

    For environmental organization GrowNYC, their one-acre teaching farm on Governor’s Island became a victory garden for New Yorkers who aren’t having their basic needs met during the COVID-19 pandemic. While future land development on the island could impact their work, the farm is on track to produce about 20,000 pounds of food that is distributed by other groups like the Black Feminist Project as free or low-cost coronavirus relief food boxes.

    Read More

  • Citrus for Sourdough, Eggs for Yeast

    Food bartering helps families during times of food insecurity, which is often exacerbated by crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic. Families with lower incomes have bartered for food for a long time but the pandemic has brought diversity to the families exchanging food with friends and neighbors. Food bartering is part of the cultural fabric of different groups, such as the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community, which hosts workshops on cultivating gardens. Food bartering is an inclusive and community-building practice but when bartering is the only way to get food, the communal reliance can be an emotional drain.

    Read More

  • 2.4 million pounds and counting: How sending surplus crops to food banks is helping Washington farmers and hungry families

    When the economy came to a sudden halt with the onset of a global pandemic, farmers were left with produce meant for the restaurant industry while families who lost incomes struggled to put food on their tables. For one good samaritan “it was just a matter of connecting the dots.” George Ahearn's idea to crowdsource transportation from farms to food banks led to the creation of EastWest Food Rescue, a nonprofit that has delivered 2.4 million pounds of crops to 160 food banks.

    Read More