Progress 09/01/20 to 08/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:As partners on the grant, the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) and Grassroots Gardens of WNY,worked primarily with low-income youth and community residents, including a large percentage of new Americans and BIPOC people. 90% of the people we worked with during this grant period were low-income, food insecure adults, seniors and youth, living mainly in neighborhoods on Buffalo NY's East and West sides. Over 50% of the people we worked with this year were new Americans, representing 8 different nationalities and cultural backgrounds. Of the youth we served, 34% identified asAfrican or African-American, 24% as Asian or Asian-American, 21% as Latinx, 3% as Native American, 8% as mixed race and 10% Caucasion.92% of the youth we worked with were low-income. We also purchased produce from 19 small urban and rural farms, providing them with a new market outlet. 4 of those farms were run or owned by Black or Latinx farmers. Changes/Problems:The COVID pandemic continued to impact our work, mainly the progress of some of our market gardeners to develop capacity and our ability to employ at least 50 youth each year. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Although many professional development opportunities remained virtual this reporting period, staff and youth attended local, regional and national conferences including the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG) conference during the fall of 2020, the Northeast Organic Farming Association's NY Winter conference (2021) and the 2021 Mobile Market Conference. In the summer of 2021, we hosted and our farm staff participated in a Weed Identification and Suppression workshop for urban farmers, given by Cornell Cooperative Extension. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our results are disseminated with key partners and the larger communitythrough both MAP's and GGWNY's newsletters, facebook pages, Instagram,and annual reports. MAP youth also have their own blog called the Revolution will be Cultivated where they regularly write about the work they are doing on the farm, and in other aspects of their work.The evaluation of this project and other related research done by Dr. Samina Raja and colleagues at the University at Buffalo Food Systems and Health Communities Lab has been shared with colleagues and at presentations at MAP's Farmhouse. In August 2021, some of the work of this project was also shared with the community during a city-wide Urban Farm Day which included tours of MAP's farm and presentations by UB's Food Lab. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective #1 outcomes: Grassroots Gardens of WNY (GGWNY), co-partner with the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) on this grant, continued to support 114 community gardens in Buffalo and Niagara Falls, NY during this reporting period, including 4 new community gardens established in the 2021 season. We continued to support the growth of 3 market gardens as follows: For a third year, we supported the market garden with Journey's End Refugee Services (JERS) and their Green Shoots for New Americans Program teaches urban farming to resettled refugees inBuffalo. Growers here learnhow to grow in raised beds, in hoop houses and with hydroponics. In 2020 and 2021, we continued to provide material support in terms of soil, tools, compost, seeds and technical assistance to growers.We also provided a workshopfor on soil health and considerations for urban farmers, led by market garden leader, Bir Rai. Produce grown at this market garden in 2021, including carrots, lettuces, arugula, mizuna, Hmong cucumbers, Chinese long beans, Nepali eggplant, Nepali and Bhutain pepperswas sold by the farmers to MAP's Mobile Market, to JERS for inclusion in their CSA boxes and directly to the public at the farm stand located at an adjacent mixed retail space. In 2021, we supported the continuation of the Edison Street Market Garden at 132 Edison Street in Buffalo, which had several COVID related challenges.Managed by the African Heritage Food Cooperative (AHFC), this garden is also now in its third season. COVID significantly impacted the operations of the African Heritage Food Cooperative, including the garden. The Co-op had to close both of its newly opened storefronts situated in communities with high food insecurity however they did some food distribution thru a mobile market. They struggled to have consistent growers due to the other demands on the staff and the lead gardener's family being impacted by significant health crises. Despite these challenges, crops continued to be grown in 4 raised beds, totaling 128 sqfeet of growing space, and a hoop house was constructed. Technical assistance and education was provided on site during the 2021 season. In 2021, we also continued supporting our newest market garden community partner, Fillmore Forward and their Square Community Market Garden. This garden had its second season but due to COVID impacts had to delay original plans to open a farmers market on site this year. Instead, the garden was expanded in size.There are now 12 beds on the site, growing tomatoes, kale, squash, and greens, as well as 8 fruit trees. Some produce was sold to MAP's Mobile Market this year and GGWNY provided onsite technical assistance and education on raised bed building, watering, and seed starting.Community outreach continues to build neighborhood interest and we will continue to support their plan for an onsite farmer's market in 2022. Objective #2 outcomes: As noted above, we continued in 2021 to support the market garden with Journey's End Refugee Services(JERS) and the Green Shoots for New Americans Program which teachers urban farming to resettled refugees in the city of Buffalo.The market gardeners grew cultural crops including carrots, lettuces, arugula, mizuna, Hmong cucumbers, Chinese long beans, Nepali eggplant, Nepali and Bhutain peppers. In addition in 2021, MAP has continued to diversify culturally significant crops grown at our urban farm.New crops have included African eggplant, winter melon, increased production of collards, a range of Thai chili peppers, Korean perilla and Chinese long beans to name a few.These cultural crops from MAP and the Journeys End market garden have been made available to neighborhood residents through MAP's Mobile Market, which has served over 7,000 Buffalo households in 2021.This year we also translated market information, recipes and nutrition information into Swahili, Karen and Spanish to better serve our customer base. Objective #3 Outcomes: During the fall of 2020 and thru 2021, MAP offered cooking and food preservation classes to youth and community members on-site at our Farmhouse Commercial kitchen. During the last year, 35 teens have been involved in meal planning, value-added product development, culinary training and nutrition education activities.They made seasonal small batch products that we sell at our markets, including salsa verde, kimchi, soups, pesto and galletes.During the summer months they made weekly meals that we share together. This summer we explored a range of cultural cuisinesincluding a traditional Eid meal, and Burmese, Polish, Italian and Native American meals. Youth researched and presented the history of the food they prepared and some told personal stories of the food and what it means for their families. During the fall of 2020 we held on-line cooking and food preservation classes for adults which were viewed on-line by over 1,200 people and included topics like Cooking with herbs, Burmese cooking, Thai cooking, and Food Storage How-tos. In 2021 we resumed on-site community cooking classes, some taught by community members and youth, and incorporated cultural cooking such as Burmese, Indian, and African cooking classes.In total this period 35 youth and 108 community members total gained knowledge of nutrition, meal planning and food preparation and preservation skills Objective #4 Outcomes: From Sept 2020 -Aug 2021, 35 youth (ages 14-20) were employed and trained in our Growing Green program, gaining job skills and a knowledge of sustainable food systems, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement. Youth worked 20 hours per week in the summer and 8 hrs per week during the school year. More than half of the youth employedcontinue to be new Americans. Youth received leadership training during our 6-week summer program and 30 week school year program.As well as hands on work at our urban farm and Mobile Market sites, youth learn the environmental, social and economic impactsof conventional and sustainable agriculture on our food system.During the summer of 2021, youth resumed working on MAP's Mobile Market, bringing the food they helped grow at MAP's farm to 10 food insecure neighborhoods on a weekly basis. During our 2021 Market season, MAP's Mobile Market also purchased produce from 19 local farms, 5 urban farms and 14 regional (WNY) farms. This created new market income for these farms and allowed us to provide more local produce to our customers. 2021 was the first year that 100% of our market produce was sourced locally (within 100 miles)! ?Objective #5Outcomes: ?15 youth have participated in food and climate justice education but their opportunities to participate hands-on advocacy and network building continue to be somewhat limited by COVID. In the fall of 2020, after about a year of advocacy, MAP youth with other youth across the City were successful in getting City government to officially declare a climate emergency. Youth and community members continued to learn about and advocate for the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) and our efforts to bring it to the Buffalo Public Schools. The GFPPis a national model of values based local food procurement which incorporates the 5 values of environmental sustainability, animal welfare, nutrition, local economies and valued workforce. It seeks to shift institutional food purchasing from conventional agriculture to more sustainable and regional food producers and distributors who care for people and the planet. In part because of our advocacy, this spring the school district completed a baseline assessment with the Center for Good Food Purchasing towards eventual adoption of the GFPP program. Working with our allies in New York City, we also worked over the last year to educate NY State Senators about the GFPP and are hopeful they will introduce a bill in the coming months to change institutional bid requirements to make them more in line with GFPP values based procurement.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/21
Outputs
Target Audience:As partners on the grant, the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) and Grassroots Gardens of WNY,worked primarily with low-income youth and community residents, including a large percentage of new Americans and BIPOC people. 91% of the people we worked with during the 4 year grant period were low-income, food insecure adults, seniors and youth, living mainly in neighborhoods on Buffalo NY's East and West sides. Over 50% of the people we worked withwere new Americans, representing 13 different nationalities and cultural backgrounds. Of the youth we served, 35% identified asAfrican or African-American, 32% as Asian or Asian-American, 15% as Latinx, 3% as Native American, 6% as mixed race and 9% Caucasion.92% of the youth we worked with were low-income. We also purchased produce from 19 small urban and rural farms, providing them with a new market outlet. 4 of those farms were run or owned by Black or Latinx farmers. Changes/Problems:The COVID pandemic impacted our work, mainly the progress of some of our market gardeners to develop capacity and our ability to reach our goal of employing at least 50 youth annually. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?With the exception of most of2020, staff and youth involved in this project took advantage of professional development opportunities, attending local, regional and national conferences including the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG) conference (attended 2 years), the Northeast Organic Farming Association's NY Winter conference (attended 3 years) and the National Good Food Network Conference in early 2020. We have also had opportunities for our staff and youth to also receive training and workshop offerings through Cornell Cooperative Extension, Buffalo State College and the Food Systems and Healthy Communities Lab at the University of Buffalo. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our results are disseminated with key partners and the larger communitythrough both MAP's and GGWNY's newsletters, facebook pages, Instagram,and annual reports. MAP youth also have their own blog called the Revolution will be Cultivated where they regularly write about the work they are doing on the farm, and in other aspects of their work.The evaluation of this project and other related research done by Dr. Samina Raja and colleagues at the University at Buffalo Food Systems and Health Communities Lab has been shared with colleagues and at presentations in the community at MAP's Farmhouse. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective #1 outcomes: Grassroots Gardens of WNY (GGWNY), co-partnered with the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) on this grant, supported 114 community gardens in the cities of Buffalo and Niagara Falls, NY during the 4 year grant period. Approximately 75% of these gardens are in neighborhoods lacking easy access to fresh produce. A total of 5 market gardens were established during the 2017-2021 grant period. Three of the gardens (the Journey's End Market Garden, the Edison Street Garden with African Heritage Food Cooperative, and the Square Community Market Garden) have successfully continued. Established with support of this grant, the market garden with Journey's End Refugee Services (JERS), has successfully continued for a third year. JERS' Green Shoots for New Americans Program teaches urban farming to resettled refugees in the city of Buffalo. Their participants generally supported themselves through small-scale agriculture in their countries of origin and after resettling, they how to grow in raised beds, in hoop houses and with hydroponics in the WNY climate. We have supported farmers and their families who "graduated" from the Green Shoots training program by building 4 raised beds for their market garden in its first season (2018) and adding another 4 raised beds in 2019. In 2020 and 2021, we provided continued material support in terms of soil, tools, compost, culturally-specific seeds, technical assistance and education to their growers. Produce produced at this market garden is sold by the farmers to the MAP Mobile Market, and to JERS for inclusion in their CSA boxes and directly to the public at the farm stand located at an adjacent mixed retail space. The Edison Street Market Garden, managed by the African Heritage Food Cooperative (AHFC), for a third season, was established and also successfully supported for a third year. 4 raised beds, totaling 128 square feet of growing space were established, as well as a hoop house for season extension. Crops grown are distributed through the AHFC Mobile Market. Although AHFC's storefront had to close due to the pandemic, the storefront will provide another retail outlet once it reopens. GGWNY also provided onsite technical assistance and education to the market gardeners at this site every year, for the past 3 years. The Square Community Market Garden, managed by Fillmore Forward just completed its second season but due to significant community impact from COVID had to delay its original plans to open a farmers market on site in 2021, which is now planned for the summer of 2022. Instead, the garden was expanded in size and there are now 12 beds on the site, growing tomatoes, kale, squash, and greens. There are also 8 fruit trees on the site. GGWNY have provided onsite technical assistance and education on raised bed building, watering, and seed starting and will continue to support this project into 2022. Objective #2 outcomes: As noted above, we supported the creation of a successful market garden with Journey's End Refugee Services(JERS) and the Green Shoots for New Americans Program which teachers urban farming to resettled refugees in the city of Buffalo. The market gardeners planted crops including carrots, lettuces, arugula, mizuna, Hmong cucumbers, Chinese long beans, Nepali eggplant, Nepali and Bhutain peppers. In addition, and in response to the culturally diverse customer base of MAP's Mobile Market, MAP has increased culturally significant crops grown at our urban farm over the last 4 years. New crops have included African eggplant, winter melon, increased production of collards, a range of Thai chili peppers, Korean perilla and Chinese long beans to name a few. These cultural crops have been made available to neighborhood residents through MAP's Mobile Market, which has served over 10,000 Buffalo households in the last 4 years. We have also translated market information, recipes and nutrition information into Swahili, Karen and Spanish to better serve our customer base. Objective #3 Outcomes: In December 2018, MAP completed construction on an 11,000 square ft. Farmhouse and Community Food Training Center at our urban farm. This new training space and a new commercial kitchen allowed us to hold cooking, food preservation, and nutrition classes, create value added products for market and offer kitchen space to small scale food entreprenuers to start or grow their businesses. During 2019 and the fall of 2020 thru 2021, MAP offered cooking and food preservation classes to youth and community members on-site at our Farmhouse Commercial kitchen. 392 total workshop participants gained knowledge of nutrition, meal planning and food preparation and preservation skills. Some classes were taught by community members and youth, and incorporated cultural cooking such as Burmese, Indian, and African cooking classes. MAP youth also made weekly meals together during our summer program which also represented their cultural backgrounds. MAP youth also helped create value-added products like kimchi, pickles, and baked goods which were sold at Mobile Market sites. Objective #4 Outcomes: From Sept 2017 -Aug 2021, 152 youth (ages 14-20) were employed and trained in MAP's Growing Green program, gaining job skills and a knowledge of sustainable food systems, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement. Youth worked 20 hours per week in the summer and 8 hrs per week during the school year. The COVID pandemic drastically lowered the number of youth we could safely employ in 2020 so we fell short of our goal to employ 200 youth over the 4 years of the grant period. Youth learned hands on- skills at our farm, in the kitchen, and at market sites, while also learning advocacy and leadership skills. The expanded food storage capacity of MAP's new Farmhouse building, allowed us to expand Mobile Market operations. Over the 4 years of the grant period we expanded the number of Mobile Market sites from 6 to 14 and increased healthy, affordable, locally sourced and culturally food access to an average of 5,500 households annually. During the pandemic, we had to scale our market sites back to 10 but we were able to leverage funds to get corporate sponsorship to start a 50% off purchase incentive for anyone with any financial hardship, which resulted in over 7,000 households with improved food access in the last year of this grant. During each year of this grant we have worked to source as much food as possible from regional farms and in 2021, 100% of the produce sold at Mobile Market sites was sourced locally from 19 small farms. Objective #5Outcomes: Over the period of this grant, MAP established the Good Food Buffalo Coalition made up of 16 partner organizations, to advocate for the adoption of the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) by the Buffalo Public Schools (BPS). We also educated and involved 30 youth in advocacy efforts. The GFPP (https://goodfoodpurchasing.org/) is a national model of values based local food procurement which seeks to shift institutional food purchasing from conventional agriculture to more sustainable and regional food producers and distributors who care for people and the planet. While some of our advocacy efforts were put on hold during 2020 because of COVID, the BPS has completed a baseline assessment with the Center for Good Food Purchasing which is a first step towards adoption. In 2020- 2021 we also worked with a GFPP group in New York City to educate NY State policy makers about GFPP. NYS Senator Hinchley who leads the Agriculture committee will soon introduce a bill to change the bid process requirements for large institutional buyers that will make it easier for procurement in line with GFPP values. In addition, 15 youth participated in food and climate justice education and participated with other youth across the City to advocate for the City of Buffalo to declare a climate emergency, which they did successfully in the fall of 2020.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience:89% of the people we worked with during this reporting period were low-income, food insecure adults, seniors and youth, living mainly in neighborhoods on Buffalo NY's East and West sides. Over 50% of the people we worked withwere new Americans, representing 7 different nationalities and cultural backgrounds. Of the youth we served this reporting period 30% identified asAfrican or African-American, 38% as Asian or Asian-American, 15% as Latinx, 8% as Native American, 6% as mixed race and 2% Caucasion.92% of the youth we worked with were low-income. We also purchased produce from 13 small urban and rural farms, providing them with a new market outlet. 3 of those farms were run or owned by Black or Latinx farmers. Changes/Problems:While COVID-19 Pandemic presented many challenges we were still able to move forward on meeting most of our objectives. We are having to move most of our community education and workshops either outside or on-line which has been challenging.We were only able to employ 20 youth safely, which is well below our goal of 50 youth employed annually but we are hopeful that bynext summer we can bring more youth back. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Many professional development opportunities and conferences were cancelled or postponed this year because of COVID-19. We did send one staff and 5 youth to the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference in Oct 2019. Youth were able to connect and learn from other youth in the Northeast working on food systems and urban agriculture issues. MAP's Executive Director and Community Organizer attended the National Good Food Network Conference in New Orleans in early March just before COVID shut everything down. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our results are disseminated with key partners and the larger communitythrough both MAP's and GGWNY's newsletters, facebook pagesand annual reports. MAP youth also have their own blog called the Revolution will be Cultivated where they regularly write about the work they are doing on the farm, and in other aspects of their work.This year one of our youth workers is also an aspiring filmmaker and he produced a series of short films highlighting different aspects of MAP's work in the community, which were then circulated on social media. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period MAP and GGWNY will: Host on-line workshop series on market gardens for our broader community garden network Continue on-line and small in-person cooking, nutrition and food preservation classes at MAP's Farmhouse Community Kitchen Continue supporting market gardens and evaluating market value of crops and sales at established market garden sites and make adjustments as needed Continue year-round youth employment and training activities with at least 20 youth, ages 14-20 Continue to expand sourcing of local produce and farm products from local farms and expand food distribution at Mobile Market sites Continue to work with partners to increase local food procurement by the Buffalo Public Schools and advocate for the adoption of the Good Food Purchasing Program by the District by the end of 2021.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective #1 outcomes: Grassroots Gardens of WNY (GGWNY), co-partner with the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) on this grant, supported a record 113 community gardens in the cities of Buffalo and Niagara Falls, NY in 2020. Approximately 75% of these gardens are in neighborhoods lacking easy access to fresh produce. Thirteen new gardens joined the network in 2019-2020 and all were within neighborhoods of high food insecurity. We successfully established or supported 3 new market gardens this reporting period as follows: By the end of 2019, the Humber-Grider Market Garden, located completed a second season. This garden was built on a collaborative model engaging three other key community partners, the Delevan-Grider Community Center, Field & Fork Network, and Groundwork Buffalo. These partners recruited youth ages 17-24 in the community to be trained as apprentice market gardeners through Grassroots Gardens WNY. In the fall of 2019, GGWNY provided weekly consulting with the youth program to ensure the garden and crops would be successfully ready for market. After the harvest of the 2019 season, due to a number of difficulties with the partnering agencies, the program ended. A new community group has expressed interest in taking over the Humber-Grider Community Garden as a market garden for the 2021 season. The Edison Street Market Garden we established in partnership with the African Heritage Food Cooperative (AHFC), is also in its second season. AHFC's vision is to "create a just and livable world wherein inner city communities can eat, better employ themselves, and prevent predatory pricing." They opened two storefronts in food deserts, one on the East side of Buffalo and another in Niagara Falls.. At the end of the 2019 growing season, 6 varieties of crops were harvested (tomatoes, collard greens, jalapenos, bell peppers, cabbage, and beans) and marketed at AHFC storefronts. In 2020, a new garden manager took over site management of the market garden. GGWNY provided onsite technical assistance and education on site during the 2020 season to troubleshoot issues she was having in the garden, from pests to watering needs to neighborhood problems. Harvest was again distributed throuth AHFC. GGWNY continued supporting market garden community partner, Fillmore Forward and their Square Community Market Garden, which comprises 4 city lots including an urban forest. 12 large garden beds have been completed, and garden tools purchased. Crops included tomatoes, kale, squash, and greens. 8 fruit trees plus six hardwood trees were also planted. The end goal for this garden is to have 16 raised beds for community and neighborhood-scale market gardening with an on-site farmer's market. GGWNY provided onsite technical assistance and education on raised bed building, watering, and seed starting. We are working on a workshop for the fall 2020 via Zoom on Market Gardening 101 for the community members who are growing there. Due to COVID19, the farmer's market on site is postponed until the 2021 season, giving us more time to work with this garden on an educational and outreach plan. Objective #2 outcomes: We successfully continued a second year at the market garden with Journey's End Refugee Services(JERS) and the Green Shoots for New Americans Program which teachers urban farming to resettled refugees in the city of Buffalo. Participants learn to grow in raised beds, in hoop houses and with hydroponics. The Green Shoots Program is in its 6th year and was now ready to "graduate" a few farmers who felt confident they could go out on their own from the community urban farm to launch their own microenterprise. We built garden beds and provided workshops to 8 of their farmers on how to use cover crops to enrich their soil and with provided trouble shooting for issues they were having as market growers. The market gardeners planted crops this year including carrots, lettuces, arugula, mizuna, Hmong cucumbers, Chinese long beans, Nepali eggplant, Nepali and Bhutain peppers. Produce grown was sold to the MAP Mobile Market, to JERS for inclusion in their CSA boxes and directly to the public at the farm stand located at an adjacent mixed retail space. By the end of 2019 the Massachusetts Avenue Project's (MAP) Mobile Market had increased healthy food access to 6,069 households by distributing food at 14 Mobile Market sites throughout Buffalo. When COVID hit we pivoted our food justice efforts to respond to the emergency food needs of our community. In April we began sourcing food from local farms for Feed Buffalo (a pantry distributing halal food) and other emergency pantries. In June, we returned to Market sites at 5 locations and added 3 more market sites thru the summer and fall. We have also been able to extend 50% purchase discounts to anyone identifying a need, as well as discounted food box distribution. We expect to reach at least 7,000 households by the end of 2020.. Objective #3 Outcomes: From Sept 2019 thru mid March, MAP continued providing cooking and food preservation classes to youth and the community on-site at our Farmhouse Commercial kitchen. Once COVID hit, we had to cancel the remaining classes we had planned for the Spring. Although we continued cooking classes with a small group of youth (8) over the summer, we also took that time to figure out how to do on-line classes in our kitchen which we plan to start up in the fall of 2020. Objective #4 Outcomes: From Sept 2019 -Aug 2020, 20 youth (ages 14-20) were employed and trained in our Growing Green program, gaining job skills and a knowledge of sustainable food systems, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement. Youth worked 20 hours per week in the summer and 8 hrs per week during the school year. From mid-March to June we worked with youth remotely and brought them back on-site in July. They learned hands on- skills at our farm and in the kitchen while learning learning advocacy and leadership skills. During the fall of 2019 they developed some value added products that they sold in our on-site store, at holiday fairs and on our Mobile Market. Examples include dehydrated apple chips, dried mushroom soup mixes, dried herb mixes and soups. This summer they worked on baking and pickling skills and made a range of baked goods and pickled veggies to sell at the market. During our 2019 and 2020 Market season to date MAP's Mobile Market purchased produce from 13 local farms, 3 urban farm and 10 regional (WNY) farms. This created new market income for these farms and allowed us to provide more local produce to our customers. Objective #5Outcomes: 15 youth have participated in food and climate justice education and participated with other youth across the City to help draft a resolution to get City government to declare a climate emergency. 15 youth have been taught and educated others about the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP) and bringing it to the Buffalo Public Schools. The GFPP (https://goodfoodpurchasing.org/) is a national model of values based local food procurement which seeks to shift institutional food purchasing from conventional agriculture to more sustainable and regional food producers and distributors who care for people and the planet. Because of our advocacy, the school district started a baseline assessment towards adoption of the program in the fall 2019 but when COVID hit all their attention turned to getting emergency food out to students. This advocacy will continue in the fall of 2020 and we hope the baseline assessment will by completed by the end of the year.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:93% of the people we worked with during this reporting period were low-income, food insecure adults, seniors and youth, living mainly in neighborhoods on Buffalo NY's East and West sides. Over 50% of the people we worked withwere new Americans, representing 13 different nationalities and cultural backgrounds. Of the youth we served this reporting period 40% identified asAfrican or African-American, 35% as Asian or Asian-American, 12% as Hispanic,8% as Caucasion, and 5% as mixed race. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?One MAP staff and 35 MAP youth received training in the Just Transitions Framework that provides a strategy for moving from an extractive economy that devalues land and people to a cooperative, democratic economy that puts people and the planet above profits. 2 MAP youth participated as Climate Justice Fellows thru the WNY Environmental Alliance and 4 youth and one staff attended and facilitated workshops at the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference in Philadelphia in Nov 2018.In May 2019, MAP staff and a coalition of partners from Buffalo working on the Good Food Purchasing Program attended the Power of Procurement Summit in Chicago where they learned and networked with folks involved in the Good Food Purchasing Programs around the country. Internally from Jan- May 2019, MAP staff participated in a "Me and White Supremacy" model of racial equity training and reflection. GGWNY's Executive Director had the opportunity to travel to the Land Trust Alliance's national conference in October 2018 in Pittsburgh and then the New York State Land Conservation Conference in May 2019. Both of these conferences included a focus on building the capacity of urban growers like community gardeners and market gardeners who are growing on leased land. We were excited to connect to nationally-known urban farmers like Leah Penniman of Soulfire Farm and Stephanie Morningstar of Skyworld Apothecary and the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust at these conferences. MAP and GGWNY staff are collaborating to bring these speakers to Western New York to share their knowledge and skill with our urban growers in late 2019 and early 2020. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our results are disseminated with key partners and the larger communitythrough both MAP's and GGWNY's newsletters, facebook pagesand annual reports. MAP youth also have their own blog called the Revolution will be Cultivated where they regularly write about the work they are doing on the farm, with the Mobile Maket and in other aspects of their work.When GGWNYcompleted the training portion of the market garden experience at Humber-Grider Market Garden, a community celebration was held to acknowledge the youth's hard work, efforts and to share information with the community about the program as a form of outreach At the end of the summer MAP youth also presented results of theirwork at a free community dinner event that was held to keep neighbors and the larger community informed of the work they were doing. MAP staff and youthalso shared progress and results of our work at a NOFA NY Food Justice workshop held in our neighborhood in Buffalo at the end of August 2018 and at a Tour de Farms event held in Buffalo in September 2018. GGWNY is planning a series of 2020 workshops on market gardening for our entire network where we will be sharing the outcomes of the market gardens. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period MAP and GGWNY will: Host a workshop series on market gardens for our broader community garden network Continue cooking and food preservation classes at MAP's Farmhouse Community Kitchen Continue supporting market gardens and evaluating market value of crops and sales at established market garden sites and make adjustments as needed Continue year-round youth employment and training activities with 50 youth, ages 14-20 Expand cooking, food preservation and nutrition education workshops for youth and community members Continue to expand sourcing of local produce and farm products from local farms and expand food distribution at Mobile Market sites Launch urban growing soil standards and farmers pledge and publish urban farm and market directory Conduct year round expansion pilot of Mobile Market from Nov 2019- Apr 2020 Support the Buffalo School District Food service department in a baseline assessment for the Good Food Purchasing Program Continue to work with partners to increase local food procurement by the Buffalo Public Schools and advocate for the adoption of the Good Food Purchasing Program by the District by the end of 2020.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective #1: Provide community gardeners with training for and facilitation of neighborhood-scale market gardensGrassroots Gardens of WNY (GGWNY), co-partner with the Massachusetts Avenue Project (MAP) on this grant, supported a record 110 community gardens in the cities of Buffalo and Niagara Falls, NY. Approximately 75% of these gardens are in neighborhoods lacking easy access to fresh produce. Six new gardens joined the network in 2018-2019 and all were within neighborhoods of high food insecurity. We worked to establish or support 3 new market gardens this reporting period as follows: The market garden at the Humber-Grider Community Garden, in its second year, involved youth participants in growing many varieties of peppers and herbs and marketing herb packets at the end of the season. GGWNY provided weekly workshops and consulting on establishing themarket garden between June and August 2019. A second market garden was started in June 2019 with the African Heritage Food Cooperative (AHFC). They have opened two small storefronts in food desert neighborhoods. 6 varieties of crops (tomatoes, collard greens, jalapenos, bell peppers, cabbage, and beans) were harvested and sold at their storefronts and mobile market. We are in discussions with AHFC about buildinga partnership between them and the Humber-Grider Market Garden in the Spring of 2020. Opening in 2020, "The Square" market garden will comprise 4 city lots including an urban forest. Filmore Forward and GGWNY have planned 16 raised beds for community and neighborhood-scale market gardening with an on-site farmer's market. Soil testing and remediation were conducted during the 2019 growing season. GGWNY will teach the community members how to build raised beds and provide market garden training in the Spring of 2020. Objective #2: To meet culturally-specific food needs of refugee and immigrant populations in the City of Buffalo by creating production and market opportunitiesWe worked with Journey's End Refugee Services (JERS), to start a new market garden near their urban farm. JERS' Green Shoots for New Americans Program teachesurban farming to resettled refugees in the city of Buffalo. The Green Shoots Program is in its 5th year and was now ready to "graduate" a few farmers who felt confident they could go out on their own from the community urban farm to launch their own microenterprise. We supported these farmers in building raised beds at the new "Brewster Street Farm." Crops at the market garden included carrots, lettuces, arugula, mizuna, Hmong cucumbers, Chinese long beans, Nepali eggplant and chili peppers. This produce will be sold by the farmers in the late summer into fallto the MAP Mobile Market, to JERS for inclusion in their CSA boxes and directly to the public at the farm stand located at an adjacent mixed retail space. Objective #3:Improve access and consumption of nutritious food by creating a Community Kitchen that will provide a structured resource for community members, including youth, to prepare nutritious meals and preserve garden produce With the completion of MAP's new Farmhouse and Community Food Training Center in December 2018, 521 people completed cooking, growing, food preservation and nutrition education workshops and training between January- July 2019. Examples of class topics included Food as Medicine, Hands-On Cooking Skills, Ethiopian Cooking, Food Preservation Techniques and Kids in the Kitchen.During the 2018-2019 School Year we partnered with a local high school and facilitated a monthly cooking class taught in part by MAP trained youth and attended by 40 youth.I n July- August 2019, we held a 6-week cooking and nutrition education class with 35 youth. Each week a team of 5-7 youth work with volunteer chefs to plan and prepare a lunch meal for the rest of the group (35 youth plus staff and volunteers) as a way to learn about meal budgeting and planning, nutrition, cultural aspects of food, and culinary skills. In the meal planning, youth were encouraged to incorporate foods from their own cultures and to use ingredients that were in season. Meals included Burmese, Thai, African, Puerto Rican and international street food dishes. Objective #4: Provide new opportunities for youth job training and enterprise expansion. From Sept 2017 -Aug 2018, 51 youth were employed and trained in our Growing Green program, gaining job skills and a knowledge of sustainable food systems, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement. Youth were employed and received leadership training during a6-week summer program and 35-week school year program. As well as hands on work at our urban farm and Mobile Market sites, youth learned the environmental, social and economic implications of conventional and sustainable agriculture and the impacts of our food system on climate change. 5 youth who previously completed at least 1 year of our program, were employed during the summer of 2019 in farm, culinary, and market apprenticeships.. We also employed 3 college age Growing Green Alumni in Americorps positions who served as Team Leaders to younger youth starting the program. This ladder of work opportunities for youth from high school to college, paired with peer teaching and leadership has proven very impactful both for new and returning youth participants. During 2019, MAP's Mobile Market increased the number of market sites from 9 to 14 sites. Sites were all located in low-income food insecure neighborhoods and included 2 churches, a public school, an Immigrant and Refugee Center, a Senior Center, 2 Health Clinics, a Veterans service organization, several Community Centers and MAP's urban farm. From Sept 2018- August 2019 MAP improved healthy food access to over 3,100 households, impacting approximately 9,000 individuals. Many market customers reported that the Mobile Market is the primary way they get fresh fruits and vegetables. We were able to source produce for the Mobile Market from11 local farms, including 2 urban farms, creating increased revenues for these small farms. Objective #5:Organize community members with a special focus on youth, and work with public and private partners to promote local food procurement policy and other policy to promote food equity.Over the past year, we have built up the membership and facilitated efforts of the Good Food Buffalo Coalition with constituencies supportive of social justice, labor, animal welfare, farming, academic, business, environmental and food organizations who have worked over the last year to build allies with the Buffalo Public Schools Food Service Department and School Board towards the adoption of the Good Food Purchasing Program (GFPP). The Chicago Food Policy Action Council provided Strategic Planning services to the Coalition to develop an action plan for moving advocacy efforts forward. 15 MAP trained youth (ages 14-20) were educated about the Good Food Purchasing Program and have been involved in advocacy efforts, meeting with school board members and providing input to the Food Service Department. A resolution was drafted and discussed with School Board Members to approve the GFPP baseline assessment with the Food Service Dept and the Center for Good Food Purchasing but revisions are still being made to this resolution. We hope to see it passed in the fall.
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Progress 09/01/17 to 08/31/18
Outputs
Target Audience:94% of the people we worked with during this reporting period were low-income, food insecure adults, seniors and youth, living mainly in neighborhoods on Buffalo NY's East and West sides. Over 50% of the people we worked withwere new Americans, representing 13 different nationalities and cultural backgrounds. Of the youth we served this reporting period 36% identified asAfrican or African-American, 31% as Asian or Asian-American, 16% as Caucasion, 12% as Hispanic and 5% as mixed race. Changes/Problems:We had a change in our Co-Project Director. Melissa Fratello, the Executive Director of Grassroots Gardens of WNY left her position for another job in May of 2018. She has been replaced by Jeanette Koncikowski who is the new Executive Director and Co-Project Director for the Buffalo Community Food Hub Project. A letter signed by the Authorized Representative and Project Director, Diane Picard has been submitted to awards@nifa.usda.gov for approval of this change What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?2 staff (one from MAP and one from Grassroots Gardens WNY) participated in a Master Food Preserver Training which will allow them to train community members, youth, and gardeners in food preservation. 40 MAP youth were trained in the Just Transitions Framework that provides a strategy for moving from an extractive economy that devalues land and people to a cooperative, democratic economy that puts people and the planet above profits. 3 MAP youth participated as Climate Justice Fellows thru the WNY Environmental Alliance and 2 MAP staff and 5 youth attended and facilitated workshops at the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group Conference in Baltimore in Nov 2017. GGWNY provided training to new market gardeners, The Fresh Food Fellows, who are a group of youth (7-10 youth participated over the year-long program).GGWNY's Community Garden Manager also participated in an 8-week "Seed to Supper" course which provided her information that can then be shared with our gardeners regarding gardening in economically-challenged areas. MAP's youth organizer was a Fellow with the HEAL Food Alliance and had the opportunity to learn and share with 10 other Fellows from across the country.In November 2017, we brought 5 youth to the Northeast Sustainable Working Group (NESAWG) Conference and People of Color Caucus in Baltimore, MD. 3 MAP youth presented a workshop at the conference on Agriculture and Climate Change. Connections made at this conference led to coalition building with youth leadership/urban agriculture programs from Syracuse, Pittsburgh and NY City. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Our results are disseminated with key partners and the larger communitythrough both MAP's and GGWNY's newsletters, facebook pagesand annual reports. MAP youth also have their own blog called the Revolution will be Cultivated where they regularly write about the work they are doing on the farm, with the Mobile Maket and in other aspects of their work. At the end of the summer MAP youth also presented results of theirwork at a free community dinner event that was held to keep neighbors and the larger community informed of the work they were doing. Youth were able to practice theri public speaking skills and showed off the culinary skills they had learned by preparing the community meal. MAP staff and youthalso shared progress and results of our work at a NOFA NY Food Justice workshop held in our neighborhood in Buffalo at the end of August 2018 and at a Tour de Farms event held in Buffalo in September 2018. GGWNY is planning a series of 2019 workshops on market gardening for our entire network and we will be sharing the outcomes of this first market garden there. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the next reporting period MAP and GGWNY will: Establish operations of MAP's new Farmhouse and Community Food Training Center Host a workshop series on market gardens for our broader community garden network Begin the cooking and food preservation classes at MAP's Farmhouse Community Kitchen Continue evaluating crops at our first-established market garden. Determine with community partners where the second market garden site will launch in Spring 2019. Continue year-round youth employment and training activities with 50 youth, ages 14-20 Expand cooking, food preservation and nutrition education workshops for youth and community members Expand sourcing of local produce and farm products from local farms and expand food distribution at Mobile Market sites Continue to work with youth and communitypartners to increase local food procurement by the Buffalo Public Schools and advocate for the adoption of the Good Food Purchasing Program by the District by the end of 2019
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Objective #1: During year 1 of the grant period a new, neighborhood-scale market garden was established at the Humber-Grider Community Garden, located at 852 East Delavan Avenue, Buffalo, NY. This garden was built on a collaborative model engaging two other key community partners, the Delevan-Grider Community Center and Groundwork Buffalo. These partners recruited youth ages 17-24 in the community to be trained as apprentice gardeners through Grassroots Gardens of Western New York (GGWNY). GGWNY provided weekly workshops on establishing and growing a market garden, including entrepreneurship skills.. In the spring of 2018, the garden was planted with 6 crops for market sale: okra, zucchini, cucumbers, Italian basil, Thai basil, and parsley. From June-August 2018, GGWNY provided weekly consulting with the gardeners during the growing season to ensure the garden and crops would be successfully ready for market. Herbs Produce from the garden started being sold at the Erie County Medical Center's farmer's market. The gardeners had the opportunity to attend the market with the vendor to learn marketing and sale skills. An evaluation of the inventory will be undertaken in the fall of 2018 to determine which crop was the most profitable before the program begins again in Spring 2019. Objective #2: GGWNY has identified two potential partners for the next market gardens to be added to our network. For Spring of 2019, we have constructed beds at the Michigan Riley community garden that is on the property of the Michigan Riley Farm, an urban farm on Buffalo's East side. This is a new garden and the plan is to identify gardeners interested in market gardening during the Winter 2018/Spring 2019. GGWNY will then train the gardeners in market gardening and facilitate a collaboration with the farmers also operating on that land. We will begin exploring collaboration opportunities with Journey's End Refugee Services in the Fall of 2018. This collaboration would link a group of Bhurmese farmers to a community garden and a buyer/market. In the meantime, we continue to link refugees to our current community gardens (4 of which are refugee-gardener led). MAP has also developed relationships with the Somali Bantu farm, to explore market and distribution opportunities for some of the produce they grow. We will continue building on these relationships in 2019. Objective #3: We anticipated construction of MAP's new Farmhouse and Community Food Training Center would be complete in early 2018 but due to construction delays, we did not have kitchen access until the summer of 2018. In July- August 2018, we held a 6-week cooking and nutrition education class with 26 youth. Each week a team of 5-7 youth plan and prepared a lunch meal for the rest of the group (26 youth plus staff and volunteers) as a way to learn about meal budgeting and planning, nutrition, cultural aspects of food, and culinary skills. Early in the week the youth team and a staff person inventoried what was ripe at our farm and planned a meal that incorporated at least one vegetable from our farm. In the meal planning, youth were encouraged to incorporate foods from their own cultures and to use ingredients that were in season. Meals included Burmese, Thai, Central African, Puerto Rican and American dishes. They learned about the geographic and historical origins of ingredients and learned ways to make some of their favorite dishes healthier. Many youth participants reported that this was their favorite part of the summer training and that they learned at least one new culinary skill. Objective #4: From Sept 2017 -Aug 2018, 46 youth were employed and trained in our Growing Green program, gaining job skills and a knowledge of sustainable food systems, entrepreneurship, and civic engagement. Most youth participants were from our West Side neighborhood (14213 zip code) and more than half are new Americans, with countries of origin including Burma, Thailand, Congo, Kenya, Sudan and the Philippines. Youth were employed and received leadership training during our 8-week summer program and 35-week school year program. As well as hands on work at our urban farm and Mobile Market sites, youth learned the environmental, social and economic implications of conventional and sustainable agriculture and the impacts of our food system on climate change. 9 youth who previously completed at least 1 year of our program, were employed during the summer of 2018 in farm, culinary, organizing, communications and market apprenticeships. These 9 positions created leadership opportunities with greater responsibility and compensation for continuing youth. We also employed 3 college age Growing Green Alumni in Americorps positions who served as Team Leaders to younger youth starting the program. This ladder of work opportunities for youth from high school to college, paired with peer teaching and leadership has proven very impactful both for new and returning youth participants. During 2018, MAP's Mobile Market increased the number of market sites from 6 to 9 sites. Sites were all located in low-income food insecure neighborhoods and included 2 churches, a public school, an Immigrant and Refugee Center, a Senior Center, a Health Clinic, a College Campus, a Community Center and MAP's urban farm. Growing Green youth were trained to run market sites and distribute recipes and nutrition information. They learned customer service, inventory, accounting, and sales and marketing skills and took pride in making healthy food available to their community, some of which they had helped grow. We improved healthy food access to over 3,100 households, impacting approximately 9,000 individuals. MAP youth were able to assist with distributing nutrition and seasonality information and also provide language translation for some customers when needed. Many market customers reported that the Mobile Market is the primary way they get fresh fruits and vegetables. We were able to source produce for the Mobile Market from 8 local farms, including 2 urban farms, creating increased revenues for these small farms. We anticipate sourcing greater quantity of food in 2019 from local farms. Objective #5:MAP-led youth advocacy and participation with Buffalo's Farm to School initiative helped to implement a Harvest of the Month pilot project at Buffalo Public schools, promoting one new locally sourced vegetable each month of the school year, impacting 33,000 school children. In the past 3 years, in part because of MAP youth advocacy efforts, close to 35% of the Districts produce budget went to New York State farms up from 11% in 2015. MAP has begun organizing youth and a coalition of community members and stakeholder groups in efforts to have the Good Food Purchasing Program, a national model for local food procurement based on the 5 values of environmental sustainability, valued workforce, local economies, animal welfare and nutrition, adopted by the Buffalo Public School District by the end of 2019. In the fall of 2017, two MAP trained youth, Ingabire Adam and Birch Kinsey applied and were elected to the Buffalo and Erie County Food Policy Council and continue to work on County-wide food system initiatives.
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