Welcome to the Opportunity Center, neighbor!!!

This week on Tuesday morning, volunteers from Pepsi, Albertsons, and Feed the Children joined CitySquare to distribute several tons of nutritious food products to several hundred families.

The effort's two-fold mission was to assist working families with their food needs and to introduce our neighbors to the location of our new Opportunity Center on Malcolm X Boulevard.

The effort was a huge success!

At the busiest time of the morning, cars stretched from our front gate all the way down Malcolm X to Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard!

It was a great morning among friends!

Basic solutions

Encouraging report on challenging hunger and caring for public health via a time-tested strategy.  We need more projects like this one!  Thanks to my friend, Richard Corum for sharing the story from the Memphis Commercial Appeal!

Farmers markets cover up, freshen up farm produce offerings

By Linda A. Moore
Sunday, May 8, 2011

While there's certainly been enough rain to satisfy the Mid-South, there were few complaints on Saturday as rain fell during the grand opening of the Urban Farms Market at Broad and Tillman.

Vendors, dry under the cover of a former gas station, offered fresh produce, some grown as close by as the Urban Farm in Binghamton, locally raised meats, cut flowers, soaps and handmade jewelry.

The market was created through the larger Binghamton Development Corp. in order to bring fresh food to the inner city, said Rosalie Bouck, market manager.

"A lot of grocery stores won't come into areas like this," Bouck said. "We're trying to make way for a model for a nonprofit food store."

The store is also graced with a mural done by local artist Danny Broadway and students from St. George's Independent School in Collierville.

As the growing season progresses, produce will be brought in from the community farm, Bouck said.

The market and corner store will be open Tuesdays and Saturdays. In addition to produce, there are limited canned goods, meats and dairy products. A drive-through coffee window will be open on weekday mornings.

Many older residents in the neighborhood need to be able to walk to a grocery store, said Binghamton resident Roger Bowen, president of Binghamton Senior Watch.

"This is a good place to find healthy food," Bowen said.

Downtown behind Central Station, the Memphis Farmers Market rolled out the green carpet for the grand opening for its West Pavilion, a new nearly $300,000 covered market area.

"We love it," said hydroponic farmer Ami Hughes. "It protected us from the rain."

She and her husband, David Hughes, run Micmak Farms in Batesville, Ark., and expect to enjoy the new pavilion this summer as well.

Funding for the West Pavilion included a $100,000 grant from the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, $65,000 from the Hyde Foundation with the remainder from supporters, said Beth Brock, board chairwoman.

The new space is west of the original market and has room for about 20 vendors.

Before, vendors used the space that was part of the parking lot and didn't really feel like a part of the market, Brock said.

"We wanted to do more for the vendors," she said. "We knew it wasn't ideal but it was all we could do."

"I think it's awesome," said regular shopper Jackie Oselen of Whitehaven. "It was a smart thing to do."

The Memphis Farmers Market opened in 2006 with 20 vendors. It now has more than 70 vendors. Also during those years, about 14 farmers markets, including markets in South Memphis, Cooper-Young, Arlington and Whitehaven, have sprung up.

With the shared goal of bringing more fresh produce to consumers, the more farmers markets the better, Brock said.

"We're so excited about the number of of farmers markets," she said. "It's wonderful."

Food

Food.

We all must have it to survive. 

Those of us who enjoy ready access to it don't give it a second thought most of the time.  Because of the richness of our blessing, we often miss the significance and power of food.

Food acts as an organizing force for social action. 

Families and friends gather around tables every day to share meals.  Along wtih meals come plans for and reports on the day, ideas, dreams, fears, confessions and actions. 

Food levels us.  Since every single one of us must have it, we must admit that our connection is communal, viseral, organic and universal. 

Evil people use food as a weapon. 

Loving people use it to create ordinary forums for celebration and discovery. 

Food determines health. 

Food affects learning.

Food is all about togetherness, hope and being human.

Food anchors us to the earth.

Food draws out celebration. . .it is the stuff of parties, wakes and home-goings, committee meetings, community organizing gatherings and late-nite, bedtime snacks.

Have you noticed?  Food facilitates conversation, connection and communion.

Consider the place of "the meal" in Christianity, Judaism and Islam--central, reoccurring and defining.

Food is about hard work, growth and the promise of another day.

Food seems to track right along with fellowship. 

Food makes children laugh and run and play. 

The lack of food makes the same children cry and sit and wonder.

Sharing, providing, distributing, manufacturing, growing, harvesting, selling, gathering and eating food nudges up against the Sacred. 

Think about it when you enjoy your next meal. 

Food--not something to take lightly or for granted.

"Let's Move" time to join the effort!

Central Dallas Ministries plays a part in the "Let's Move" initiative here in Dallas by providing healthy after school and summer lunches to thousands of children.

This summer our Nurture, Knowledge and Nutrition program will deliver meals to over 200 sites where children take advantage of organized summer activities.

In addition, thanks to a partnership involving our AmeriCorps team, PepsiCo and the Texas Department of Agriculture, an additional 500,000 meals will be delivered to thousdands of children who are not enrolled in organized programs, but who need the food. All together we expect to deliver and serve well over 1 million meals.  Our efforts focus on reaching as many children as possible with healthier food than ever before.

The video provides some national context for our local efforts. Enjoy!

Dallas students need your help with garden prep. . .

This now in from Sheri Anne MacNeil:

As some of my more vocal supporters of Healthy Harvest, I am hoping that you will both lend a hand and do some recruiting. As most of you know, I recently started the build out of a community garden at "The Miracle on Pennsylvania Avenue" called St. Phillips School. Since the students will take responsibility for a lot of the garden bed space through their science and community service curriculum, they are not as far along in construction as some others. (Little kiddo hands can only carry so much versus the adult volunteers at the other sites). In short, I need your help because I want to get them ready to plant veggies as soon as possible!

Please join me and spread the word that I need volunteers to fill beds and rows with soil and mulch Thursday, April 29 at 5:00 p.m. I will supply as many wheel barrows and shovels as I can but if you have em' - bring em'! The garden itself is behind the school at 1605 Panama Place. Feel free to forward this email and I hope to see you there!!!! (Kids, teens and adults are welcome!) Please RSVP directly to sheriannemacneil@hotmail.com.

Food Stamps and Farmer's Markets

Here's another great post from Good.is.

Tell me what you think? 

Any ideas for a solution?

Help devise a system for using food stamps to buy better produce.

We all can agree that fresh fruits and vegetables are an essential part of good health. Yet access to fresh produce remains an enormous challenge. For people on food stamps, it’s an especially difficult one as there are few supermarkets in low income neighborhoods with sufficient offerings. Even thought more farmers’ markets are springing up across the country—and more than 750 farmers’ markets nationwide accept food stamps—other challenges remain.

Foodstamps, of course, are no longer physical stamps but “electronic benefit transfer” cards (or EBTs). This has helped remove the stigma for recipients of aid—and makes shopping at supermarkets easier—but has left farmers’ markets in a tough spot: without a battery-powered wireless card reader, food-stamp recipients can't use their EBT cards. The lack of this simple machine is keeping people from buying fresh food. Many farmers are unable to afford the cost of the equipment (about $1,100 per reader) required to accept the debit cards; others feel the paperwork and record keeping is onerous.

Some (but not all) states have agreed to fund programs to facilitate the use of food stamps at farmers’ markets. Vendors can use hand-held devices, and in some cases cell phones, to process transactions. Other markets, like San Francisco’s Alemany Market, allow EBT card users to exchange their credit for market-specific tokens that can be used at individual booths, but the extra step required has resulted in a drop off in use of food stamps at farmers’ markets.

All of which begs the question: how can we make food stamps easier to use and to accept at farmers’ markets?

the OBJECTIVE

Make it easy to use and accept food stamps at farmers’ markets.

the ASSIGNMENT

Invent a low cost, easy to implement solution. Is it an app? Centralized check-out? Delivery? Something totally low tech? Barter? Trade? Let us know.

the REQUIREMENTS

Post a comment, tweet @GOOD, or e-mail projects[at]goodinc[dot]com with your solution to the problem of how to accept food stamps at farmers' markets. Your response can take the form of a sentence, a paragraph, a sketch, an annotated photo—whatever you think will best convey your idea. Deadline is Monday, March 29.

To check this site click here.

Let's Move

The following press release hit the news this past week as First Lady Michelle Obama announced her "Let's Move" initiative to combat childhood obesity.  Our friend, Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo chairman and chief executive officer, threw the support of her international corporation behind the effort. 

Here's the beginning of the release to media from PepsiCo.  Note especially the numbered paragraph #1 that mentions our joint endeavor this past summer with PepsiCo here in Dallas. 

Exciting stuff for us!

PepsiCo Supports First Lady's Initiative to Help Reduce Childhood Obesity


Company Pledges to List Calorie Content on the Front of its Beverage Containers, Vending Machines and Fountain Equipment

PURCHASE, N.Y., Feb. 9 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- PepsiCo, Inc. (NYSE: PEP), one of the world's largest food and beverage companies, today expressed its commitment to the White House's "Let's Move" initiative to combat childhood obesity – and announced a new beverage labeling plan in support of the initiative.

To help consumers manage their calorie consumption, PepsiCo will list calorie content on the front of its beverage containers, vending machines and fountain equipment by the end of 2012. Packages up to 20 ounces will be labeled with total calories and multi-serve containers will be labeled with calories-per-serving based on 12-ounce servings.

"We applaud the effort being led by First Lady Michelle Obama to address obesity in the United States and believe that her 'Let's Move' campaign can add significant momentum and leadership to many efforts underway," said Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo chairman and chief executive officer. "We have learned over the years there is no silver bullet to solve obesity. No single entity can do it alone. We need a guiding coalition in which individuals, companies, health agencies, consumer groups and governments all take on their appropriate responsibilities. Major food companies such as PepsiCo are in a unique position to be leaders in health and wellness because of our resources, brands, research and development capabilities, consumer reach and logistics expertise."

PepsiCo's belief in the power of public-private partnerships to help reduce obesity in the United States led to its partnership in the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation (HWCF). The HWCF involves the collaboration of more than 60 members of the food and beverage industry, retailers and diverse non-governmental organizations. The group provides and promotes solutions that will help people, especially children, achieve a healthy weight by balancing the calories they consume with the calories they burn. The HWCF's efforts will provide people with the tools to achieve energy balance in three key areas: the marketplace, the workplace and schools.

PepsiCo is committed to helping advance action on all four pillars identified by the First Lady and has already taken steps that address each of them:

1. Ensuring that affordable healthy food is available in more communities

Last year, PepsiCo launched "PepsiCo Hope" to help transform inner-city communities by increasing access to affordable nutrition and creating local employment in inner-city neighborhoods. Initiated by PepsiCo employees in Dallas, the program piloted an innovative mobile delivery model that brought over 50,000 free nutritious breakfasts and snacks directly to underserved children in Dallas. With the help of more than 150 PepsiCo volunteers, the program was developed in partnership with Central Dallas Ministries as part of the Department of Agriculture's Summer Foodservice Program. PepsiCo plans to significantly expand its capabilities in Dallas in 2010 and is exploring opportunities for national expansion while sharing what it has learned with other cities across the country. PepsiCo Hope is also beginning to tackle another chronic challenge identified by the local residents: improving access to fruits and vegetables.

To read the entire repot click here.

Wanted: Grocery Stores for S. Dallas

Speaking of food and access to nutritious grocery options, be sure and read this Op-Ed piece published last week in The Dallas Morning News.

The author?

Rev. Gerald Britt, my partner here at Central Dallas Ministries.

Looking for a community gardener

A number of community groups, churches and neighborhood associations with whom we work appear interested in community gardening.

The combination of concerns to develop access to healthy foods, strengthen community connections, teach children about nutrition and the environment and find ways to develop new markets for goods and services drive this growing urban interest.

I've been thinking. Why not hire a full-time urban horticulturist--an urban farmer whose only job it would be to engage interested groups, organize local neighborhood efforts and coordinate the production of great, thriving community gardens?

What do you think?

Anyone you know who might be interested in such a job?

Let me know if you know someone like this.

I'm serious.

Nutrition and children

Back to school time puts lots of great kids on our streets here in inner city Dallas. I love watching them and watching out for them as I go to work or as I drive during the day when they are returning home.

This morning I saw a little boy around 5-years-old who caused me concern.

He trailed along behind a woman, I assume his mother. In one hand he carried a small bag of chips. In the other, a can of soda. It was about 8:00 a.m. I assume what I saw in his hands was his breakfast for the day. I hope not, but I'm almost certain it was his first "meal" of the day.

Nutrition drives health, both short and long term. Nutrition plays a large role in determining wellness outcomes of a person's lifetime.

Food has always been a huge part of what we do here at Central Dallas Ministries (CDM), and for good reason. Everything here is about health and wellness outcomes.

But, nutrition, or the lack thereof, is a growing problem/challenge for us.

CDM contracts with the Texas Department of Agriculture to provide summer and after school lunches and snacks to children living in low-income households here in Dallas, as well as in Austin this past summer.

Our program, we call it Nurture, Knowledge and Nutrition, has grown dramatically for us.

For example, in 2008, CDM served 239,041 meals from January through June.

This year over the same period we have served 298,117 meals.

The figure for 2009 does not include over 50,000 additional meals, including breakfast meals, that we served in our new partnership with PepsiCo/Frito-Lay here in Dallas.

Improving nutrition for inner city families is a huge part of what we do here.

The little boy I saw this morning reminded me of just how crucial this work really is.
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Beyond community gardens to urban agriculture as economic development

Lots of folks are discussing the benefits of urban community gardens as a tool utilized by non-profit organizations for community development.

But others are taking the idea of urban gardens to an entire new scale, and in some surprising places and for profit.

Take a look at this story out of Cleveland, Ohio of all places!

Your reactions could begin an interesting discussion.

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Obesity and poverty. . .

Diet and nutrition continue to be incredible challenges for people who don't have much money.

On the one hand, access to affordable and healthy food products remains very limited in many inner city neighborhoods in Dallas simply because there are almost no full-service grocery markets.

On the other, the food products that prove to be affordable and available usually turn out to be very unhealthy.

Our Community Health Services clinic recently prepared a report on a segment of its patients battling dietary challenges that are resulting in dangerous health status outcomes.

Of the 1,291 patients screened. . .

. . .14 were underweight.

. . .187 were judged at a healthy weight.

. . .391 were overweight.

. . .571 were obese.

. . .128 were very obese.

Terrifying results from a public health standpoint.

Income levels dramatically affect health outcomes, as do neighborhood environments and resources.

So, how do we change things? What do you think?

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Harkin's Confession

Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Chairman of the powerful Senate Agriculture Committee, admitted in an interview with CNN today that America does not have enough fresh fruits and vegetables for everyone to follow the time honored dietary dictum of five servings daily.

He was asked about the connection between the Farm Bill and the rise of obesity in the U. S. He acknowledged that there was a direct connection between farm legislation and the growth of American waistlines.

Consider these facts.

Most fruits and vegetables are considered "specialty foods" by Congress. As a result, they are not subsidized like corn, for example. Subsidies mean production. Their absence leads to underproduction in the face of growing need.

Scarcity drives prices up. Result: the well-to-do in this country eat a more healthy diet than the poor.

Add to this the fact that low-income communities, especially in our inner cities, don't enjoy easy access to good supermarkets and you have the public health reality fairly well in view.

Solutions?

I'd suggest a healthy increase in the Food Stamp program for the working poor. In addition, Congress should find ways to incentivize the production of increasing amounts of fruits and vegetables and the development of good retail markets among the urban poor. These three steps along would begin to take a healthy bite out of obesity and all of the public health issues associated with it. The savings to the American tax payer in health care costs alone would be enormous.

We need to wake up to the fact that most things aren't the way they are today by accident.




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Nutrition and Behavior

Several years ago, an educator told me that the most efficient and effective way to see standardized test scores go up was to make sure that every child enjoyed a balanced, nutritious breakfast before taking any exam.

I thought of that analysis recently as I read a report on a piece of British research about nutrition and prison behaviors ("Health food is the recipe for peace," by Marco Visscher,ODE, June 2007, page 80).

Oxford senior research scientist, Bernard Gesch conducted research on the effects of good nutrition on social behavioral outcomes.

In a British prison for youth offenders, the researcher divided 231 prisoners, all young men, into two groups. For a year-and-a-half, one group received food supplements that included the suggested daily requirements for vitamins, minerals and essential fatty acids. The other group received a placebo. No one in the prison knew who was getting which regimen.

The results? Those receiving the more robust and balanced diet committed 26% fewer offences and 37% fewer violent assaults as compared to the group receiving the placebo. The study was designed to control for ethnic or social factors that might have affected the two groups and skewed the study. The obvious factor of influence on the outcome of the research project was dietary.

Researchers couldn't help but ask a big "what if" about everyone in the study regarding their diet and nutrition while growing up. Eating properly seems to have some beneficial, determining influence on behavior.

The study of youth offenders went on to report, regarding children, "There will be increasing evidence that young people are undermined by what they eat. There is not a diet yet that takes behaviour into account. In short: this is a societal time bomb."

"There is an enormous increase in the number of prisoners, not only in Europe but most certainly in the United States. Research suggests that nutrition is a cheap, humane and highly effective way to reduce anti-social behaviour. We need to know more, or the composition of the right nutrients. It could be a recipe for peace."

Interesting and intriguing.

Helping provide nutritious food for children and adults is likely an essential ingredient in any plan to fashion a more workable and productive community. I expect we knew that already, but this study does provide fresh perspective.

A detailed report on the research can be found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/2063117.stm.

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