Progress 09/01/16 to 08/31/17
Outputs
Target Audience:Since 1985, NEBHDCo has been a leading affordable housing developer in the area. NEBHDCo self-manages 929 residential units and 17 commercial units in 92 buildings. A total of 93% of NEBHDCo's tenants are at 80% AMI or below, with 76% at 60% or below, 39% at 50% or below, and 30% formerly homeless families and individuals below 30% AMI. Since 1993, we have operated a food pantry. Our Golden Harvest Client Choice Food Pantry is next door to our supportive housing building, which has 53 units including 25 units for homeless families and 28 units for chronically homeless mentally ill individuals. Our target audience for all of our work includes both our tenant base and also all low-income residents of the Central Brooklyn neighborhoods. The CfHF initiative recruits participants and leaders that live, work, and/or shop in Bed-Stuy. CfHF has programming for people of all ages. The neighborhood and our target population is 63.6% Black and 19.2% Latino. Many of our participants come to our pantry first. We use this space as a first point of engagement to introduce them to our full array of services and programs. The audience we've reached in this project period, breaks down as follows for each effort: Food Pantry Clients During this project period, we served 13,804 individuals (or household total) in our food pantry. This includes people who benefited directly from the produce that we grew and the produce that we purchased through the Corbin Hill Food Project, as well as people who benefited from our weekly cooking demonstrations - all efforts of this grant. Of these 13,804 individuals: 52% were Black, 29% were Hispanic, and the other 19% were made up of people who identified as White, Asian, Native American, and "Other" 42% were age 26-59, 23% were over 60, 9% were age 18-25, and the other 26% were 17 and under. 95% live in Brooklyn and the other 5% come from the other 4 NYC Boroughs and beyond. 59% identified as female, 39% male, and 2% unidentified. TurnUp Youth Garden Internship Program Participants Our TurnUp Youth Garden program ran from July 10th until August 24th, 2017. This year, we accepted 17 teenager into the program. Of these: 1 was 13 years old, 2 were 14 years old, 5 were 15 years old, 2 were 16 years old, 2 were 17 years old, and 5 were 18 years old. 15 were Black and 2 were Asian 9 live in Bed-Stuy, 7 live in other nearby neighborhoods to Bed-Stuy, and 1 lives outside the borough. Community Chefs In July 2016 (every Saturday from July 23-31st) we led a dynamic 4-day culinary nutrition and food justice- centered course for community members who desired to become NEBHDCo Community Chefs. While this course was before this project period 2, the last report was due in July, well before the end of period 1, so we've included it here. Out of 65 applicants, we accepted 21 trainees and 19 of them successfully graduated the program. They grew our existing team from 6 to 25 community chefs who inspire and empower individuals in Bedford Stuyvesant to create delicious and healthy meals for themselves and their families. During this project period, 23 of our community chefs were in regular rotation to lead cooking demonstrations and culinary courses. Of the 23 participating Community Chefs: 19 were female and 4 were male 22 were Black and 1 was white 10 lived in Bed-Stuy, 12 in other nearby Brooklyn neighborhoods, and 1 in Manhattan All were adults, over 21 years old 2 were over the age of 60 Culinary Courses During the project period, we conducted 2 culinary programs in the fall of 2016 (TCC & CTIFT) and 2 culinary programs in the spring of 2017 (TCC & CTIFT) and 1 in the summer of 2017 (TCC) they included: 2016 Fall- one 8-week culinary course for adults and one 5-week culinary class for families In the Fall Adult Course, we had 11 participants. Of these 11 participants: 10 were female 1 was male All 11 were Black All were adults, over 21 years old All 11 were from Brooklyn, with 8 from Bed-Stuy and the others from nearby neighborhoods. In the Fall Family Course, we had 4 families and 16 participants. Of these 16 participants: 9 were female 7 were male 11 were Black 5 were Asian American 7 were adults, over 21 years old All 16 were from Bed- Stuy Brooklyn, 2017 Spring- one 8-week culinary course for adults and one 5-week culinary class for families Summer- one 8-week culinary course for adults In the Spring Adult Course, we had 14 participants. Of these 14 participants: 10 were female 4 were male All 14 were Black All were adults, over 21 years old All 14 were from Brooklyn, with 8 from Bed-Stuy and the other 6 from nearby neighborhoods. In the Spring Family Course, we had 6 families and 16 participants. Of these 16 participants: 9 were male and 7 were female All 16 were Black All 6 families lived in Brooklyn, with 3 families in Bed-Stuy and 3 from nearby neighborhoods. 7 were 4-9 years old, 1 was 10-13 years old, and the remaining number of 9 participants were the parents, all over 24 years old. In the summer Adult Course, we had 14 participants. Of these 14 participants: 12 were female 2 were male All 14 were Black All were adults, over 21 years old All 14 were from Brooklyn, with 9 from Bed-Stuy and the other 5 from nearby neighborhoods. Senior Services During this project period, our efforts for Seniors included a community garden and two 3-day senior culinary workshops, which included a discussion, hands on demonstration, cooking lesson, recipes and culminated with a healthy family-style meal at the end of every class. The theme for the spring culinary workshop was: Discover how to reclaim your taste buds and your health by preparing your own meal so that you are fully in control of the salt, sugar and fat content of your diet. The spring culinary workshop had 15 participants. Of these 15 participants: 0 were male and 15 were female 14 were Black 1 was White All 15 lived in Brooklyn, with 11 in Bed-Stuy and 4 from nearby neighborhoods. All were 50 years or older, 7 were 65 years or older The theme for the fall culinary workshop was: travel around the world through our forks to learn how the healthiest 100-year-olds eat to maintain their well- being as they age, based on the concept of "Blue Zones" and the book, The Blue Zones Solution by Dan Buettner. The fall culinary workshop had 15 participants. Of these 15 participants: • 3 were male and 12 were female • 15 were Black • All 15 lived in Brooklyn, with 13 in Bed-Stuy and 2 from nearby neighborhoods. • All were 65 years or older The community garden has 5 participants: • All 5 are Black • All 5 live in Bed-Stuy, in the same NEBHDCo-owned building at 364 Vernon Avenue • All 5 are seniors (62+) • 3 are male and 2 are female Changes/Problems:The TurnUp and Pantry gardens have both become infested with rats over the last project period. Gentrification is often thought of as a problem of displacement of people from their homes. In all of New York City, gentrification is happening fastest in the area where both of our gardens are located - the northwestern section of Bed-Stuy. Because of the pervasiveness of blighted and abandoned buildings in this area, developers are demolishing these old buildings and building new buildings from the ground up. The gardens have been surrounded by 3 large development projects on each block. The demolitions of these buildings have not driven out people, they've driven the rats out from their nests and into our gardens. We have tried to recover from this with some level of extermination and by changing our garden beds to be up higher, to put gravel at their base, and grow crops that are repellant to rats, etc. However, more extermination is needed. As noted above, we intend to remedy this problem by late February, 2018, before the next growing season starts. While our overall harvest yields still met the program goal of 600 -1000lbs, most of this was harvested in the 2016 growing season. The low-yields of the 2017 season will be reflected in the Period 3 yields. We hope to make this up with a strong spring and early summer harvest in 2018. Additionally, in the spring 2016, our Senior Residence Garden at Lucille Rose Manor, was visited by HUD representatives who deemed the garden to be in violation of HUD regulations. They subsequently destroyed the garden and no other information was given. We didn't even learn of these events until well after they occurred. As a result, we are no longer using the Lucille Rose Manor residence as a site for our community gardening efforts. Finally, as we did in period 1, we have again had a strong fundraising year and we have been able to save on funds allocated to various program areas. We will use the remaining funds in period 3 to increase our programming's reach. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Staff and consultants have participated in several trainings and conferences that have benefitted the project. These include: The Organizer attended two trainings at the American Graphics Institute in September 2016. One was an Introduction to InDesign course and the other was an introduction to Photoshop course. She has and will continue to use these skills in the development of flyers and other communications materials. The Organizer attended Training for Social Action Trainers with Training for Change in New York City in November of 2016 to build up her facilitation skills. The Youth Programs Organizer (YPO) and FEEST leaders attended the Northeast Sustainability and Agriculture Working Group Conference in Hartford, CT in November of 2016. The Organizer attended the Advanced Training for Social Action Trainers with Training for Change in Philadelphia in January of 2017 for an advanced training in facilitation. A group of staff and program participants (including youth) attended the Just Food Conference in March of 2017. The Youth Programs Organizer, Food Justice Organizer and a group of youth attended the Allied Media Conference in Detroit in June of 2017. There was a food justice track organized by partners of NEBHDCo. The Culinary Nutrition and Education Consultant and the Youth Programs Organizer attended Soul Fire Farm's Black and Latino Farm Immersion Program in July 2017. TurnUp Youth attend the national youth conference "Rooted in Community" in North Carolina in July 2017. The Culinary Nutrition Education Consultant attended a "Food as Medicine" Conference in New Orleans, La. in June 2017 How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We have achieved nearly all of our goals during this project period. We are proud of our success and we anticipate meeting our goals for the final period of the grant. We will do this by continuing our efforts in all areas as we have been doing and as planned. There are two areas where we believe there is room for improvement and/or change for next year. The first is that we have not yet met specific targets toward the creation of a steering committee for our project. As reported above, the Organizer has done more to involve more people in our programs and has involved them in our work on a deeper level. However, there have not been any structural changes to our model to establish the steering committee. We are currently revisiting this program goal. We believe that further political education may be needed for our participants prior to the creation of a decision-making body. We will come to a decision on this in the coming weeks, check-in with our program officer, and come up with a final strategy to implement. A lot of good ground-work has been laid either way that we take it. The second area for improvement is in our gardens. The issues with our gardens will be explained in "Changes/Problems." We expect to fully address the issues before the start of the next growing season in order to ensure a bountiful final project period.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During this project period, our 23 Community Chefs conducted 122 cooking demonstrations- 11 farmers' market demos, 8 demos at the City Harvest Mobile Market, 20 demos at early childcare centers, 15 demos with community partners, 3 demos for NEBHDCo events, 50 pantry demos, and 15 DOH early childcare demos for 1,158 participants. They also taught two 5-week culinary course for families serving a total of 31 participants, three 8-week culinary courses for adults serving a total of 39 participants and two 3-day culinary workshop series for seniors serving a total of 30 participants. Our programs are sustaining in popularity, participants across programs are reporting significant shifts in eating and habits and cooking skills, and our chefs are growing as culinary leaders. In this project period, our community chefs were paid a collective $55,367.50. NEBHDCo's Golden Harvest Food Pantry has procured 17,255 lbs of produce through the Corbin Hill Food Project and we have harvested over 800lbs of produce. This provided more varieties of fruits and veggies to our nearly 288 pantry client and family members each week, all year. We use a featured item from each of these sources at each of our weekly pantry cooking demonstrations; this has also increased knowledge of cooking methods and recipes for these items. With increased produce availability (more than tripled from period 1) and regular cooking demos weekly during food distribution, we expect that our work is contributing to the better health of our clients and participants. Goal 1 Key outcomes and accomplishments: Our Culinary and Nutrition Education Coordinator (CNEC), Karen Cherfils, developed and implemented a series of Professional Development Workshops for the Community Chefs. The workshops are designed to support their learning in culinary nutrition and grow their knowledge of business management and entrepreneurship. The CNEC has been developing NEBHDCo curricula for the family and adult courses. For all courses to date, we have been using Family Cook Productions' Curricula. We expect to begin implementing our new curricula in Spring 2018. Through observation, daily surveys and completing the curricula, we found that: 9 families participated in our courses this year. Parents demonstrated increased understanding of age-appropriate tasks and included their children with ease by the end of the course. We have included selected shifts in responses to questions on our pre- and post-surveys, completed by 1 adult in each family: "Our family prepares most of the food that we eat." In the pre-survey, 4 families said the do not agree with this statement. In the post-survey 0 said they do not agree with this statement and all families said they agree or strongly agree with this statement. "Our family prefers to eat whole foods when we have access to them and we have time to prepare them in our own kitchen." In the pre-survey, 3 families said they did not agree with this statement. In the post-survey, 0 families said they do not agree with this statement and all families said they strongly agree agree with this statement. All 39 participants in the adult courses: Improved in knife and other kitchen skills. Prepared a healthy meal each week and demonstrated understanding of several different cooking methods. Were able to share information about country of origin, health benefits, and the nutritional value of the various ingredients in dishes prepared. Cooking Demonstrations Participants were often hesitant to participate in cooking demonstrations, particularly in our food pantry. By the end of the demos, nearly all of the participants reported learning something new and enjoying the demo. In all demos, participants tasted and commented on the food and went home with the recipe. At our pantry demonstrations, they took home both the recipe and the main ingredient in the dish. Goal 2 The new farm manager, Eushavia Bogan, has continued to work the increased hours since the project started - In period 2, she worked 10 hours per week in each of the 2 gardens. These increased hours showed an increase in harvest yields in the late summer months of 2016. We have re-built taller raised garden beds and a much larger shed at the TurnUp garden, built large raised herb beds at the Pantry garden, and we also did thorough renovations and clean-up throughout the gardens at both sites. We procured 17,255 lbs of produce from the Corbin Hill Food Project, surpassing our goal of 7000lbs by over 10,000lbs. Goal 3 Since applying for this CFP, we have enjoyed fundraising success and have built out a program that goes well beyond the proposed scope. In period 2, we instead accepted 6 advanced and 11 beginners. The program is also many more program hours than anticipated, at 293 hours, including a 5-day field trip for the advanced youth and an overnight trip for everyone. Cooking and Nutrition: Each recipe executed built a skill or nutrition lesson into it. For example, as the group learned about "plating" or arranging the food on plates, they also discussed how much of each dish would go on each plate given their nutritional content and what a balanced, healthy plate looks like, using Harvard's Healthy Eating Plate. Gardening: This year we added significant time in the garden and therefore increased garden skills. Many Interns describe the gardening as their favorite component. They felt it was a tangible way to implement some of the food justice and nutritional lessons. Job Skills: This module progressed successfully with few changes from period 1. This year, we also introduced a workshop on personal money management and food budgeting. By the end of the program, all 17 Interns reported feeling confident in their ability to manage their own money and to apply for a new job. Food Systems Knowledge: 100% of the youth completing TurnUp have an understanding of the major actors in a food system and have articulated an issue that is important to them. This was demonstrated through activities that were built into the curriculum. In the end-of-program survey, there were high agreement rates with the statetments "I know where most of the food I eat was grown, raised, or processed before it got to a market or restaurant." and "I can name most of the people, companies, or organization involved in growing, raising, or processing the food that I eat." Goal 4 Ashleigh Eubanks was hired as the Food Justice Organizer (Organizer) in July of 2016. Since she started we have seen an increase in community interest and participation in our programs. Our courses have been reaching their maximum number of participants with growing waitlists. The Organizer has also maintained relationships with participants during and beyond programs. Some highly active participants have gotten involved in multiple program areas. Through these relationships, the Organizer has been working toward building up the leadership and participation of highly active participants. So far these highly active participants have supported outreach efforts, attended multiple courses and provided valuable program feedback in person and on surveys. The Organizer has increased staff capacity to support the growth of our programs. In Spring of 2016, we held an event for youth on the relationship between Food Justice and Climate Justice. We then partnered with the Audre Lorde Project to offer a similarly themed workshop for adults. These workshops also served as opportunities to recruit community members to accompany the group to the Peoples Climate Movement March in Washington., DC. The steering committee of participant leaders has not formed yet. We are still in the initial phases of building trust and relationships with participants. We expect to gain more active leadership by developing more in-depth trainings and workshops for the community in the spring of 2018.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/15 to 08/31/16
Outputs
Target Audience:Since 1985, NEBHDCo has been a leading affordable housing developer in the area. NEBHDCo self-manages 929 residential units and 17 commercial units in 92 buildings. A total of 93% of NEBHDCo's tenants are at 80% AMI or below, with 76% at 60% or below, 39% at 50% or below, and 30% formerly homeless families and individuals below 30% AMI. Since 1993, we have operated a food pantry. Our Golden Harvest Client Choice Food Pantry is next door to our supportive housing building, which has 53 units including 25 units for homeless families and 28 units for chronically homeless mentally ill individuals. Our target audience for all of our work includes both our tenant base and also all low-income residents of the Central Brooklyn neighborhoods. The CfHF initiative recruits participants and leaders that live, work, and/or shop in Bed-Stuy. CfHF has programming for people of all ages. The neighborhood and our target population is 63.6% Black and 19.2% Latino. Many of our participants come to our pantry first. We use this space as a first point of engagement to introduce them to our full array of services and programs. The audience we've reached in this project period, breaks down as follows for each effort: Food Pantry Clients: During this project period, we served 2413 individuals in our food pantry. This includes people who benefited from the produce that we grew and the produce that we purchased through the Corbin Hill Food Project, as well as people who benefited from our weekly cooking demonstrations - all efforts of this grant. Of these 2413 individuals: 57% were Black, 31% were Hispanic, and the other 12% were made up of people who identified as White, Asian, Native American, and "Other" 71% were over 24 years old, 9% were 17-24 years old, and the other 20% were under 16 years old. 96% live in Brooklyn and the other 4% come from the other 4 NYC Boroughs. 60% were female and 40% were male. TurnUp Youth Garden Internship Program Participants: Although the program has yet to begin, we have conducted an application process and have already chosen participants. We will have 16 participants in the program. Of these 16 teenagers: 1 will be starting 8th grade in the fall, 2 will be starting 9th grade, 1 will be starting 10th grade, 5 will be starting 11th grade, 5 will be starting 12th grade, and 1 will be starting their first year in college. 13 are Black and 3 are Latino 3 live in Bed-Stuy, 10 live in the other nearby neighborhoods to Bed-Stuy, and 3 live outside the borough. Community Chefs: During this project period, we had 9 community chefs regularly leading cooking demonstrations and culinary courses. As the project period actually ends on August 31st, we will hold our Community Chef Training after this report is submitted, but before the end of the project period. While the application deadline for the program has passed, we have not yet chosen the participants. We will accept 20 community residents into the program. Of the 9 participating Community Chefs: 8 were female and 1 was male 8 were Black and 1 was white 5 lived in Bed-Stuy, 3 in other nearby Brooklyn neighborhoods, and 1 in Manhattan All were adults, over 21 years old Culinary Courses: During the project period, our efforts included two culinary courses - onefor families and one for Adults. For the Adult Course, we had 15 participants. Of these 15 participants: 11 were female 4 were male All 15 were Black All were adults, over 21 years old All 15 were from Brooklyn, with 9 from Bed-Stuy and the other 6 from nearby neighborhoods. For the Family Course, we had 13 participants. Of these 13 participants: 6 were male and 7 were female All 13 were Black All 13 lived in Brooklyn, with 10 in Bed-Stuy and 3 from a nearby neighborhood. 3 were 4-9 years old, 2 were 10-13 years old, 2 were 14-16 years old, and the remaining number of 5 participants were the parents, all over 24 years old. Senior Services: During this project period, our efforts for Seniors included a community garden and a senior cooking workshop. As with other efforts listed above, the senior cooking workshop is happening after this report is submitted, but before the project period is over. Therefore, the demographics are not yet available for that effort. The community garden has 5 participants: All 5 are Black All 5 live in Bed-Stuy, in the same NEBHDCo-owned building at 364 Vernon Avenue All 5 are seniors (62+) 3 are male and 2 are female Changes/Problems:As noted above, the late hire of the Food Justice Organizer has created significant delays on most of the activities associated with Goal 4. Also, due to extraordinary fundraising success and this delay in hire, we do not expect to spend any of the $18,000 on the Food Justice Organizer salary in this project period. This will instead be combined with the funding for the next project period and be spent in that period. Her percentage of time spent towards the project has not changed. We have also changed our approach to the TurnUp program and these changes are all notedin the reporting on Accomplishments for Goal 3. None of these changes have an impact on the rate of expenditure nor do they deviate from the goals. Finally, the USDA/NIFA reporting period is from September 1, 2015 - August 31, 2016. We, however, did not start most activities for the project and did not start any spending for the project until January 1, 2016. We had planned this in order for the funding to be in line with our fiscal calendar; this was approved by our project manager. Because of this, each of the three periods of the project will be delayed by 3 months for us. So, we expect to meet all goals and complete all associated activities for each period by December 31st of each year, rather than August 31st. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?While not paid for with project/federal funds, staff and consultants have participated in several professional development opportunitiesthat have benefitted the project. Theseinclude: The CHFA attended both the Growing Food and Justice for All gathering in Chicago in September. The gathering brought together about 100 practitioners from many different food justice projects (many with funding from the USDA/NIFA community food projects grant) for workshops, discussions, skill-shares, and trainings. The CHFA attended the PolicyLink conference in Los Angelesin October. The conference was attended by over 3000 practitioners, all working on different kinds of policy work - from health to housing, education, community development, and activism. This conference offered opportunities for networking and learning beyond issue areas. The CHFA coordinated and the CHFA and CNEC attended a small training for people working on the Communities for Healthy Food project. Hosted by the Local Initiatives Support Corporation and led by Yotam Marom, this facilitation training led participants through a daylong experiential workshop to enhance our ability to lead groups through both learning and decision-making. The CHFA attended the Rockwood Leadership Institute's Art of Leadership program in March, a five-day intensive residential retreat teaching powerful visioning, listening, speaking, team-building and feedback skills to emerging and established social change leaders. The CHFA is moving into a more managerial role; this was helpful for that transition. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?Because of the late hire of the Food Justice Organizer, many activities she was to do in the first two quarters of the year were delayed. She is aware of this and expects to catch up by the end of the next reporting period, by having more frequent meetings and trainings, but with enough time for planning between each one. The initial proposal had a generous timeline for this, so a later but more rapid timeline is possible. We have achieved or expect to achieve all of the other goals during this project period and we therefore expect to proceed as planned as is written in the approved project initiation.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Most traditional food knowledge has not been passed on to younger generations in Bed-Stuy. Although healthful foods are available, most is too expensive for long-time residents. Unemployment (17%) and poverty (33%) rates are high, 33% of residents are obese, 18% report not eating at least one serving of fruits or vegetables per day, and 15% have been diagnosed with diabetes. During this project period, our 9 Community Chefs conducted 100 cooking demonstrations for over 1250 participants and taught one 5-week culinary course for families with 13 participants and one 8-week culinary course for adults with 15 participants. Across programs, participants demonstrated increased knowledge about fruits and vegetables, culinary traditions and recipes, and stronger kitchen skills. Our community chefs were paid a collective $41,500. NEBHDCo's Golden Harvest Food Pantry has procured 5250lbs of produce through the Corbin Hill Food Project and we have harvested over 350lbs of produce. This provided more varieties of fruits and veggies to our nearly 2500 pantry clients each week, all year. We use a featured item from each of these sources at each of our weekly pantry cooking demonstrations; this has also increased knowledge of cooking methods and recipes for these items. By our participants having increased food knowledge as well as more fresh produce available in our food pantry, our work is contributing to future measurable health impacts. Additionally, our community chefs received program stipends that have quadrupled from the prior year, increasing wealth in the community. Goal 1 Our low-income community chefs will grow as leaders, have more economic and food security, and more opportunities to introduce community members to new ingredients and share their knowledge of preparing delicious and affordable meals from scratch. To do this we will hire a Culinary and Nutrition Education Consultant to train more residents as Community Chefs, and expand our culinary programming. Activities, Data, and Results: NEBHDCo hired the Culinary and Nutrition Education Coordinator (CNEC), Karen Cherflis, who has worked an average of 21 hours/week since September 7th. The CNEC brought on additional community chefs due to added programming and has held two mini-trainings to expand their knowledge of their practice. The Community Chef Training will occur before the end of the project period. It is set for July 23rd, 24th, 30th, and 31st; for 20 participants. Our Community Chefs led: One 5-week culinary course for families with 13 participants One 8-week culinary course for adults with 15 participants 100 cooking demonstrations The number of demonstrations and courses more than doubled from the year prior, thus increasing the economic and food security of our community chefs. Key outcomes and accomplishments: Additionally, through observation, daily surveys and completing the curricula as planned, we found that: Family Course: All 5 families reported more cooking at home between classes. Parents demonstrated increased understanding of age-appropriate tasks and included their children with ease by the end of the course. Children reported liking new and more vegetables. Adult Course: All improved in knife and other kitchen skills. All demonstrated understanding of several different cooking methods. All were able to share information about country of origin, health benefits, and the nutritional value of the various ingredients in dishes prepared. All reported cooking more at home between classes. Cooking Demonstrations Participants tasted and commented on the food and went home with the recipe. At our pantry demonstrations, they took home both the recipe and the main ingredient in the dish. Most participants expressed excitement in preparing the recipe at home. Goal 2 We will increase the amount and variety of fresh produce in our pantry by 1) increasing harvest yields in our own gardens by increasing Farm Manager hours; adding a hoop house to the pantry garden for a longer growing season; and adding rainwater catchment and drip irrigation to both of our gardens; and 2) procuring more produce from a local food distributor working with upstate NY farmers (CHFP). Our pantry clients will also learn how to prepare this produce through new cooking demonstrations during pantry distribution that will provide recipes and teach about the benefits and preparation options for the produce being distributed. The farm manager Yemi Amu has increased her hours in the garden beginning in 2016, from 5 hours to 10 in each garden. This had no impact on harvest yields for 2015, but we expect to see increased yields for 2016. Our garden building consultant Andrew Smith installed a hoop house in the Pantry Garden in June. This will elongate our growing season, increasing yields. Our project partner GrowNYC added rainwater catchment to both garden sites in June. Drip irrigation will be installed in the coming weeks. The rainwater catchment will provide for a more sustainable garden. The drip irrigation will supply a steady source of water for our plants and increase yields. We began procuring produce for our pantry from Corbin Hill Food Project in January. We expect to reach our goal of 7000 additional lbs by the end of the project period. We conducted 29 cooking demonstrations for approximately 261 pantry clients. All other accomplishments, results and data for our pantry demonstrations have been reported in Goal 1. Goal 3 Effective job, gardening and cooking skills training and food justice education will enable the TurnUp youth interns to be better prepared to enter the workforce. They will also feel more empowered and knowledgable about taking action for change on any issue important to them. They will understand the current food system, spend time visioning what it could be, and finally, have the skills to grow and prepare their own food. We developed our TurnUp Internship program beyond what we initially proposed in the project proposal. We fully expect to surpass our goals for the project. The program will run from July 18 - September 1, a shorter duration than proposed, but with significant program hours added. We hired a Youth Programs Organizer, Makshya Tolbert, to design a new curriculum, administer, and facilitate the program. Completed in July, she has created a curriculum for a 2-track (beginner and advanced) peer-mentored program for 16 teenagers. The curriculum covers all of the same modules initially proposed: food justice, cooking, gardening, and job skills; but will go more in-depth than originally planned. The application processwas completed on July 7th. Due to a very effective outreach campaign, we had an overwhelming number of applicants - 159in total. We have accepted 16 into the program. Goal 4 By hiring a Community Engagement Organizer (Organizer), more community residents will be aware of/participate in added CfHF activities in this project, and more active participants will become leaders and guide the direction and planning of CfHF. Due to internal HR processes, the hiring of the Community Engagement Organizer was delayed by several months. We also changed the title to Food Justice Organizer and Ashleigh Eubanks started in this position on July 6th. Because of this, the only activity other than the hiring of this position we conducted was program outreach. This was achieved with the help of outreach consultants and additional time toward the project by the CHFA. Outreach has been successful, with all of our programs at capacity.
Publications
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