Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience for the Community Food Project that were reached during this period include community members within the Triangle region of North Carolina: 1. Mixed-income, demographically diverse families and adults with developmental disabilities in Durham County who identified isolation and a predominance of unhealthy food as key challenges. 2. Primarily low-income African American families in the Old East Durham neighborhood who identified cuts to SNAP and lack of fresh food in their neighborhoods as a challenge. 3. Low income Burmese and Karen refugees living in Chapel Hill (Orange County), who come from an agrarian culture and seek ongoing access to nutritious and familiar foods in an unfamiliar country. *Additional audience reached = low income families affected by the pandemic and experiencing food / nutrient insecurity. Changes/Problems:As is well known, the COVID 19 pandemic was extremely disruptive to many food system operators, and Farmer Foodshare & its 3 community partners were no exception. Supply chains were disrupted, income was reduced when institutional buyers like restaurants and school dining programs were closed down, and community food insecurity spiked almost overnight. Fortunately, we were able to modify our operations and our program activities to address the changing needs of our orgs and communities, while still adhering to the purposes of the NIFA program and our own project goals. In general, what that meant is that many (but not all) in-person activities such as meetings, conferences and trainings were canceled or postponed, or were moved to remote delivery. Food distribution models that were originally designed as high-contact, interactive models were shifted to low- or no-contact models. And project personnel worked more hours (increasing matching hours greatly in Yr 3 for some) and expanded their reach in response to the ever-increasing hunger and need in our community. Generally speaking, more actual program services occurred in Yr. 3 than originally planned, while fewer trainings and less eval/dissemination than planned occurred. When FFS former program staff, Erica Neal and Terry Billie, applied for the extension and completed the initial Yr 3 report, they were relatively new to our organization, and inexperienced in federal grant reporting. Therefore they were not aware of all the ways that this program was served in Yr 3, and therefore did not report them fully in the initial Yr 3 report. They also did not take the opportunity to request any slight revisions to the project scope, activities or eval plan that might have been advisable based on the COVID 19 "pivots' outlined above. Here in YR 4, and during the final reporting process, our ED, Kelly Crane, who is now the AOR/PD for this project, has had the opportunity to gather data and information from the 3 community partners and from our external evaluator, to fully report on the activities completed in Yr 3. This information is reflected in the previous "accomplishments" section of this report. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Community Foodshare program created a variety of learning opportunities: FF met with the leadership of each Community Foodshare site prior to each year of programming. The outcomes of these meetings and subsequent conversations around measurement continued to underscore important community/cultural differences that must be incorporated into program design for the program to achieve its desired results. Each site also participated in training on how to market and administer EBT, and RM learned how to calculate wholesale order volumes. Each site utilized site liaisons to coordinate the distributions. Though the specific responsibilities vary from site to site, this has resulted in training on how to assemble and distribute food boxes and track participation. FF also facilitated a successful partnership between NC Central University's service-learning program and CIP's food distribution in 2019. FF and CIP presented learnings at the Community Food Systems Conference in Savanah, Ga in December, 2019. The workshop, Community Foodshare: Food Distribution Models to Support Food Sovereignty and Local Farmers was very well received and CIP reported multiple networking connections made at the conference. In January, 2020 FF coordinated a community event where the TTCF youth leadership group shared both about TTCF and what they are doing to promote food sovereignty in their community and also about an oral history project that they completed with a UNC-CH professor. Farmers supplying produce to the Community Foodshare program learned about production planning and growing and marketing culturally appropriate food. Community members received fresh food education and safe storage instructions and have learned about North Carolina farming communities. (See "accomplishments" section above for additional learning opportunities created for program participants at each site.) How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?To enable the learnings to extend into additional communities and learn from others' best practices, Farmer Foodshare participated on the advisory board of Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education / Extending Roots of Fresh Stops Markets across the Southeast Region, a multi-year project led by the University of Kentucky, University of Tennessee, New Roots in Louisville, KY, and SSAWG, a collection of comparable Foodshare and distribution organizations. New Roots visited Farmer Foodshare in September 2019 to learn from all three Community Foodshare partner sites. FF and CIP presented learnings at the Community Food Systems Conference in Savanah, Ga in December, 2019. The workshop, Community Foodshare: Food Distribution Models to Support Food Sovereignty and Local Farmers During the pandemic and since, Farmer Foodshare and all 3 sites have participated in Durham County's Food Security Council, and were able to provide peer support to the Durham County Government and other community food operators to help collectively inform pandemic hunger response efforts. In January, 2020 FF coordinated a community event where the TTCF youth leadership group shared both about TTCF and what they are doing to promote food sovereignty in their community and also about an oral history project that they completed with a UNC-CH professor. Survey data collected from Community Foodshare participants was disseminated to the 3 sites to complete a feedback loop for collective learning and evaluation of programmatic success. ADDITIONAL SURVEY & EVAL DATA: As a part of the formative evaluation of the Community Food Share Project, all community partners were involved in developing the organizational assessment process, along with an external evaluator. These assessments increased knowledge about how to develop strategies that address communities' food security by drawing on the assets of each community, as well as building better understanding among stakeholders to increase engagement and strengthen partnerships. Three stakeholders from Farmer Foodshare, three stakeholders from Reality Ministries, and two stakeholders from Transplanting Traditions were able to participate in the organizational assessment in July 2019. FFS partnered with external evaluators to create pre/post participant surveys that would meet the unique needs of each site's participants, an organizational assessment for partner organizations, a tracking device for logging engagement with farmers, and a calculation tool for placing wholesale orders. The process of developing and implementing these devices has underscored the importance of factoring in cultural differences in evaluation design. At the conclusion of the 2019 CFS season, not only did we find that 78% of low-income participants reported an increased consumption of fruits and vegetables but that 52.7% of participants also reported great or good gain in knowledge of new recipes. Knowledge of how to properly store fresh foods was slightly lower for skill gain, with a combined 42.1%. One additional focus group (approximately 6 participants) was conducted at Communities in Partnership in early 2020 with an external evaluator. The majority of participants had participated in the market for two years. Participants discussed what they liked the most (access to food, particularly vegetables) and least (staff turnover) about the market. All of the participants responded enthusiastically when asked if they felt that they ate more vegetables as a result of the program, and especially appreciated that they were fresh. When asked how they could be better supported through the program, participants had several ideas for how they could learn to prepare the fresh food that they receive: 1) cooking classes; 2) receiving recipes; and 3) recipe sharing between participants. No further focus groups were held at CIP due to COVID-19. [Additional focus groups were planned but canceled due to the confluence of language/cultural barrier and COVID restrictions.]? RM surveys (2019): Consumption of fresh vegetables: 78.9% (15 individuals) indicated increase Recipe knowledge: 52.7% (10 individuals) indicated increase Knowledge of produce storage: 42.1% (8 individuals) indicated increase Knowledge of cooking with fresh produce: 26.4% (5 individuals) indicated increase CIP surveys (2020, 2021): 2020: Consumption of fresh vegetables: 96% (27 individuals) indicated increase Recipe knowledge: 75% (21 individuals) indicated increase Knowledge of produce storage: 85.7% (24 individuals) indicated increase Knowledge of cooking with fresh produce: 78.5% (22 individuals) indicated increase 2021: Consumption of fresh vegetables: 90.8% (69 individuals) indicated increase Recipe knowledge: 57.9% (44 individuals) indicated increase Knowledge of produce storage: 68.4% (52 individuals) indicated increase Knowledge of cooking with fresh produce: 73.7% (56 individuals) indicated increase * How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Click here for help on this item. To enable the learnings to extend into additional communities and learn from others' best practices, Farmer Foodshare participated on the advisory board of Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education / Extending Roots of Fresh Stops Markets across the Southeast Region, a multi-year project led by the University of Kentucky, University of Tennessee, New Roots in Louisville, KY, and SSAWG, a collection of comparable Foodshare and distribution organizations. New Roots visited Farmer Foodshare in September 2019 to learn from all three Community Foodshare partner sites. FF and CIP presented learnings at the Community Food Systems Conference in Savanah, Ga in December, 2019. The workshop, Community Foodshare: Food Distribution Models to Support Food Sovereignty and Local Farmers During the pandemic and since, Farmer Foodshare and all 3 sites have participated in Durham County's Food Security Council, and were able to provide peer support to the Durham County Government and other community food operators to help collectively inform pandemic hunger response efforts. In January, 2020 FF coordinated a community event where the TTCF youth leadership group shared both about TTCF and what they are doing to promote food sovereignty in their community and also about an oral history project that they completed with a UNC-CH professor. Survey data collected from Community Foodshare participants was disseminated to the 3 sites to complete a feedback loop for collective learning and evaluation of programmatic success. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1: Increase reliable and consistent access to healthy and culturally appropriate food among low-income community members. YEAR 1 In Year 1, the Community Foodshare program completed 31 fresh food distributions across three program sites, serving more than 1,000 low-income community members with fresh, culturally appropriate food sourced by North Carolina farmers. At the conclusion of the 2019 CFS season, community members at each site participated in a survey which found that 78% of low-income participants reported an increased consumption of fruits and vegetables (61% reported "Great Gain," 17% reported "Good Gain") YEAR 2 In Y2, the Community Foodshare (CFS) program completed 31 fresh food distributions across three program sites, serving more than 4,028 low-income community members. 18 distributions were made by Communities in Partnership (CIP), serving 669 households, all of whom are low income. CIP's number served increased greatly as the COVID pandemic increased hardship on the community they serve. In Y2, Reality Ministries (RM) conducted 4 distributions (1/week for 4 weeks), serving 48 households (162 individuals) of varying size. Transplanting Traditions Community Farm (TTCF) conducted 10 distributions, serving 1,288 community members, as well as 25 Karen farmers, all of whom are low income. YEAR 3 In Y3, Farmer Foodshare distributed 1.8 Million lbs. of food, the equivalent of 1.5 M locally grown, nutrient dense meals, reaching the plates of community members experiencing food insecurity; expanded our partnerships to work with 36 community partners on this project, with 55 drop-off sites in our community; and delivered 50,000 hunger relief boxes delivered to individuals and families experiencing food insecurity. In Y3, CIP, began selling CSA boxes featuring Black & Brown farmers to the larger Durham community to gain additional program revenue. This allowed them to increase community co-op deliveries from one to two times a month. TTCF's Share a Share Program, which allows farmers to earn income growing produce for food insecure refugee families, distributed 4,000 lbs of food to 200 food insecure refugee families. RC supplied 30 families with a "CSA-style" food distribution, every other week, for 12 total months starting summer 2020, featuring low-contact pickup. Goal 2: Strengthen existing food and value chain resources in the community, including access to training for local farmers and low-income participant access to SNAP-EBT. YEAR 1 In Year 1, the Community Foodshare program engaged with 33 North Carolina farmers about sales opportunities and product mix, resulting in $22,773 in produce sales overall to a new customer base. Nine of the 33 are female farmers who are part of the TTCF Karen community. TTCF offered them 8 education trainings covering topics such as crop planning, sustainable agriculture, business and marketing. Farmer Foodshare also provided EBT training to each site team, none of which had experience in accepting SNAP-EBT. YEAR 2 In Y2, the CFS program engaged with 43 North Carolina farmers about sales opportunities and product mix, resulting in $30,434 in produce sales overall to a new customer base. 8 of the 43 are female farmers who are part of the TTCF Karen community. TTCF offered 11 education trainings covering topics such as crop planning, sustainable agriculture, business and marketing as well as 2 educational field trips to local farms. This program generated $13,515 in revenue for the farmers and 3,200 pounds of traditional ethnic food for low-income refugee consumers this year alone. In July 2020, CIP launched the East Durham Market, a monthly farmers market that offers 50% off for customers who have SNAP/EBT or other public assistance. FF continued to offer EBT support to sites and also supported TTCF farmers in pursuing additional wholesale opportunities outside of Community Foodshare, and CIP in connecting to a black farmers market to support its distributions. YEAR 3 In Y3, the TTCF Business Development Program continued to focus on providing refugee farmers access to land, agricultural education, and other opportunities to develop agricultural businesses. Despite the serious threat of COVID-19, they were able to continue outdoor farmer training, as well as expanding their CSA and farmers markets. Although language barriers and covid safety issue cut down on their ability to survey their participants and do in-person focus groups, the program still reported major output & outcomes. For example, TTCF trainee farmers reported a 58% increase in farmer incomes this year over last. $165,153 was earned by 5 CSA farmers in 2020-21 through Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), farmers markets, and their online store. Goal 3: Build among low-income community members the skills and confidence needed to achieve food self-sufficiency. YEAR 1 In keeping with Community Foodshare's intent to provide learning opportunities that suit the unique needs of each community, each year, Farmer Foodshare met with each site team to determine the programming they wished to offer. CIP elected to partner with other local organizations to offer related resources, such as career counseling and information about children's nutrition programming. RM and TTCF offered 20 taste tests and weekly distributions of vegetable handling instructions and recipes throughout the 2019 Community Foodshare season. RM also enabled 30 participants to engage in its existing farm and cafe programs to deepen their understanding of how fresh food is grown and prepared. In addition, two RM participants with intellectual/developmental disabilities who do not have other paid work were employed through Community Foodshare. TTCF's educational efforts involved the translation of Burmese recipes into written form through an oral history project and community presentations. TTCF also employs 3 refugee farmers to grow food for the Community Foodshare program. YEAR 2 In September 2019 CIP held a community listening session/conversation with Commissioner Brenda Howerton. CIP also held a feedback session with SEEDS about community farm plots. Additionally, CIP offered healthy, balanced dinner and recipes at each community conversation and feedback session they held. TTCF offered multiple opportunities for training and skill development including, TTCF taught eleven total agricultural, business and marketing courses for a total of 33 hours of in classroom training as well as hosting 2 educational field trips for participants to visit local farms. TTCF was also able to send participants to the Growers' School. TTCF distributed traditional Asian recipes weekly (10 weeks) at local farmers markets and Community Foodshare distributions. TTCF's CSA recipients also received vegetable handling instructions in a weekly newsletter. CIP distributed culturally appropriate, healthy, seasonal recipes to CIP participants. Reality Ministries held weekly cooking classes for low-income family members (56 total participants) before COVID RM through a "cafe" on-site twice a month. There they were teaching folks with developmental disabilities to cook and hospitality skills. They used food grown on the Reality Ministries Farm when in-season. YEAR 3 In Y3, RM hosted virtual cooking classes, weekly, 9 months, 10-15 people in each class. CIP started the Culinary Femme Collective, which supports members in the development of value-added products to create more diverse revenue streams during the pandemic and initiated a planning process for a commercial kitchen space to be operated by the collective.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/19 to 08/31/20
Outputs
Target Audience: Community members in 3 diverse communities in the Triangle region of North Carolina: Mixed-income,demographicallydiversefamiliesandadultswithdevelopmentaldisabilitiesinDurhamCountywho identified isolation and a predominance of unhealthy food as keychallenges. Primarilylow-incomeAfricanAmericanfamiliesintheOldEastDurhamneighborhoodwhoidentifiedcutstoSNAPand lack of fresh food in their neighborhoods as achallenge. Low-incomeBurmeseandKarenrefugeeslivinginChapelHill(OrangeCounty),whocomefromanagrariancultureand seek ongoing access to nutritious and familiar foods in an unfamiliarcountry. Changes/Problems: The most significant challenge during year 2 has been the COVID-19 pandemic.COVID has affected each of our partners in multiple ways. For all partners, COVID has meant that leadership at each organization has had alter the scope of their work to address their community needs amid the pandemic.For CIP and TTCF, it actually meant that they increased the number of distributions that they performed to meet the needs of their participants.All three partner organizations work with populations disproportionately affected by COVID-19. For CIP it has meant much of the in-person, hands-on education has had to cease and it has also meant a virtual end tocommunity volunteers from NCCU.For RM, given the vulnerability of their community, it has meant a complete halt to programming and food distribution. Finally, for TTCF it hashad to temporarily pausetheirSNAP/EBT Neighborhood Market Salesas well as putting atemporarily pauseonthe refugee youth leadership program which meant weekly planned cooking demonstrations at the Carrboro Farmers' Market werealsopaused for the year. COVID-19 also poses some challenges regardingyear 2evaluation.Most likely, we will be unable to hold in-person focus groups and depending on the access to and comfort with technology we are unsure if we will be able to hold online focus groups. We will address this by ramping up our surveying and allowing for a longer period of time for data collection. We will continue to implement learnings from year one which include conducting TTCF surveys orally to overcome language/literacy barriers, conducting RM's surveys on paper to incorporate the visual imagery needed by participants with developmental disabilities as well as making sure CIP's surveysare administered solely by staff at CIP to be sensitive to its low-income, black audience. We will also continue to administer the survey as a combined pre/post at theconclusion of the 2020 season and, again, rather than comparing pre- and post-program measures to calculate the extent to which participants changed their behavior, participants will be asked to judge the extent to which their behavior has changed since the start of the program. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided? FF met with the leadership of each Community Foodshare siteprior to year 2 of programming. The outcomes of these meetings and subsequent conversations around measurementcontinued tounderscore importantcommunity/culturaldifferencesthatmustbeincorporatedintoprogramdesignfortheprogramtoachieveitsdesired results. Eachsiteutilizessiteliaisonstocoordinatethedistributions.Thoughthespecificresponsibilitiesvaryfromsitetosite,this has resulted in training on how to assemble and distribute food boxes and track participation.FF has also facilitated a partnership between NCCentralUniversity'sservice-learningprogram and CIP's food distributionwhich has been very successful. FarmerssupplyingproducetotheCommunityFoodshareprogramhavelearnedaboutproductionplanningandgrowing and marketing culturally appropriatefood. CommunitymembershavereceivedfreshfoodeducationandsafestorageinstructionsandhavelearnedaboutNorth Carolina farmingcommunities. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest? Survey data collected from Community Foodshare participantswasdisseminated at the final food distribution for each site. FF andCIP shared results/best practices at theCommunity Food Systems Conference inSavannah, Ga inDecember2019. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals? We are currently in discussions with leadership at each site as COVID-19 has altered the way programming looks at each site. We willagaincollect and disseminate results of the first year of programming and use those insights to refine programming for Year 2. While we await those results, the Community Foodshare site teams are anticipating these additional tweaks: CIPwillcontinueitscurrentprogrammingaswellasanongoingexchangeofinformationregardinghowtobetter integrate black farmers and food into theprogramas well as their newly launched East Durham Market. RMplans to resumeitsCSAonce COVID cases in NC are below a 5% positivity rate due to the health concerns of the community they work with. TTCFwillcontinue toexperimentwithadditionalmodelsofmarketingitsfooddistribution,includingat the RefugeeSupport Center where they have been able to expand their reach.TTCF is also trying to figure out a safe way for them to continue their winter Growers School since they cannot bring people together indoors.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Goal 1 In Y2, the Community Foodshare (CFS) program completed31fresh food distributions across three program sites, serving morethan4,028low-income community members with fresh, culturally appropriate food sourced by NC farmers, far more participants than themore than 1000from Y1. Because the 2020CFS season stretches into Oct., there also will be additional food distributions. At the conclusion of the 2019 CFS season, community members at each site participated in a survey which found that78% of low-income participants reported an increased consumption of fruits and vegetables(61% reported "Great Gain," 17% reported "Good Gain") 18distributions by Communities in Partnership (CIP) serving669households,all of whom are low income.CIP'snumber served increased greatly as the COVID pandemic increased hardship on the community they serve. Per distribution pre-COVID,CIP served 140 individuals from 35 families and post-COVIDthey have served 457 individuals from 165 families. Reality Ministries (RM) conducted 4 distributions (1/week for 4 weeks), serving 48 households (162 individuals) of varying size, 8 of which are low income.Due to COVID-19, RM decided not to conduct programming during Summer 2020 as planned. RM decided not to hire community members to perform distributions as it was not safe for them to do so. RM will resume programming once NC is at a less then 5% COVID positive rate; like resuming in Spring 2021. Transplanting Traditions Community Farm (TTCF) will have conducted10distributions by the end of August 2019, serving1,288community members, as well as25Karen farmers, all of whom are low income. Goal 2 In Y2, the CFS program engaged with43North Carolina farmers about sales opportunities and product mix, resulting in$30,434in produce sales overall to a new customer base.8of the43arefemale farmerswho are part of the TTCF Karen community. TTCF offered them11education trainings covering topics such as crop planning, sustainable agriculture, business and marketingas well as 2 educational field trips to local farms. These farmerscontinued to growAsian produce thataredesired by the Burmese community and otherwise unavailable. In Y2, the CFS site at TTCF has generated$13,515in revenue for the farmers and3,200pounds of traditional ethnic food for low-income refugee consumers.A survey of TTCF participants found that 85% agreed that "access to traditional Asian produce is important to the health of my family."In July 2020, CIPlaunched the East Durham Market, a monthly farmers market that offers 50% off for customers who have SNAP/EBT or other public assistance. In Y2 SNAP/EBTparticipation was low,as it was in year 1,with 4 families participating at RM. The payment models chosen by 2 of the 3 sites (significant subsidization at CIP and sliding scale payment at RM) reduced the need for individuals to use their benefits through this program.Lastly, COVID has impacted in-person distributions for TTCF andthey have also suspended taking in person paymentthus, SNAP/EBT usage has been affected. FF also has supported TTCF farmers in pursuing additional wholesale opportunities outside of Community Foodshare, and CIP in connecting to a black farmers market to support its distributions. FF continues to provide EBT training to each site team,as needed. Goal 3 In keeping with CFS intent to provide learning opportunities that suit the unique needs of each community, during Y2, FF met with each site team to determine the programming they wished to offer. In September 2019 CIP held a community listening session/conversation with Commissioner Brenda Howerton. CIP also held a feedback session with SEEDS about community farm plots. Additionally,CIP offered healthy, balanced dinner and recipes at each community conversation and feedback session they held.RM continued to operate Reality Café which teaches participants about cooking healthy, in-season produce as well as Reality Farm where participants learn to grow fresh foods. Lastly, RM provided cooking classes and health classes to participants and their families on a weekly basis.TTCFoffered multiple opportunities for trainingand skill development including,TTCF taught eleventotalagricultural, business and marketing courses for a total of 33 hours of in class room training as well ashosting2 educational field trips for participants to visit local farms. TTCF was also able to send participants to the Growers' School. All three CFS sites had to decrease in-person education and training (especially taste tests/cooking demos) due to COVID-19 precautions. As reported last year,FF partnered with external evaluators to create pre/post participant surveys that would meet the unique needs of each site's participants, an organizational assessment for partner organizations, a tracking device for logging engagement with farmers, and a calculation tool for placing wholesale orders. The process of developing and implementing these devices has underscored the importance of factoring in cultural differences in evaluation design.At the conclusion of the 2019 CFS season,not only did we find that78% of low-income participants reported an increased consumption of fruits and vegetablesbut that52.7% of participants also reportedgreat or good gain in knowledge of newrecipes.Knowledge of how to properly store fresh foods was slightly lower for skill gain, with a combined 42.1%. Other activities include: FF and CIP presented learningsat theCommunity Food Systems Conference inSavanah, Ga inDecember, 2019. The workshop,Community Foodshare: Food Distribution Models to Support Food Sovereignty and Local Farmerswas very well-received and CIP reported multiple networking connections made at the conference. In January, 2020 FF coordinated a community event where the TTCF youth leadership group shared both aboutTTCFand what they are doing to promote food sovereignty intheircommunityand also about an oral history project that they are working on witha UNC-CH professor. Farmer Foodshare met with each site team to determine the means by which they wished to offer these servicesand we are reevaluating this in the face of COVID-19 to maintain safety for all: RM conducted taste tests and cooking demonstrations at2of its food distributions and distributedrecipes at each of their 4 distributions. TTCF distributed traditional Asian recipes weekly (10weeks) at local farmers markets and Community Foodshare distributions. TTCF's CSA recipients also receive vegetable handling instructions in a weekly newsletter. FF met with each site team to determine the programming they wished to offer. FF connected CIP with NCCU Service Learning -enabling NCCU students to volunteer at CIP food distributions.This includes one NCCU student who volunteered weekly and created culturally appropriate, healthy, seasonal recipes to CIP participants. TTCF's teen program serves as TTCF's primary means of community education. The Karen community has an oral culture, so the teens are gathering and writing down traditional Asian recipes from the farmers (their mothers) as part of an oral history project. They also spoke about the impact of the program at a community gathering hosted by Farmer Foodshare. TTCF also employs 3 refugee farmers through the CFS program.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:Community members in 3 diverse communities in the Triangle region of North Carolina: 1. Mixed-income, demographically diverse families and adults with developmental disabilities in Durham County who identified isolation and a predominance of unhealthy food as key challenges. 2. Primarily low-income African American families in the Old East Durham neighborhood who identified cuts to SNAP and lack of fresh food in their neighborhoods as a challenge. 3. Low-income Burmese and Karen refugees living in Chapel Hill (Orange County), who come from an agrarian culture and seek ongoing access to nutritious and familiar foods in an unfamiliar country. Small to mid-sized North Carolina farmers interested in selling wholesale. Changes/Problems:The most significant challenge has been ensuring participation in the evaluation plan. Farmer Foodshare, the evaluators, and the three partner organizations met to discuss the evaluation methods and the vehicles were customized to be sensitive to the stated needs of each community. For example, TTCF's surveys were to be conducted orally to overcome language/literacy barriers. RM's surveys were on paper to incorporate the visual imagery needed by participants with developmental disabilities. CIP's surveys removed certain income questions and were to be administered solely by staff at CIP to be sensitive to its low-income, black audience. However, the evaluation plan proved to be too complex for both the partner organizations and their participants, and during the hectic food distributions, evaluation consistently fell to the wayside. RM collected 11 surveys from the 47 families served; CIP collected 19 surveys from among 200 participating families. We will address this by conducting a combined pre/post survey in October at the conclusion of the 2019 Community Foodshare season. Rather than comparing pre- and post-program measures to calculate the extent to which participants changed their behavior, participants will be asked to judge the extent to which their behavior has changed since the start of the program. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?The Community Foodshare program has created a variety of learning opportunities: The leadership of each Community Foodshare site participated in a kick-off meeting to collectively develop the first year of programming. The outcomes of these meetings and subsequent conversations around measurement underscored important community/cultural differences that must be incorporatedinto program design for the program to achieve its desired results. Each site also participated in training on how to market and administer EBT, and RM learned how to calculate wholesale order volumes. Each site utilizes site liaisons to coordinate the distributions. Though the specific responsibilities vary from site to site, this has resulted in training on how to assemble and distribute food boxes and track participation. These connections have also yielded additional employment for a CIP community member at Farmer Foodshare. Farmers supplying produce to the Community Foodshare program have learned about production planning and growing and marketing culturally appropriate food. Community members have received fresh food education and safe storage instructions and have learnedabout North Carolina farming communities. By participating in a consortium of foodshare and distribution organizations, Farmer Foodshare is learning about and creating opportunities for Community Foodshare partners to sharebest practices. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?Survey data collected in October from Community Foodshare participants will be disseminated at the final food distribution for each site. To enable the learnings to extend into additional communities and learn from others' best practices, Farmer Foodshare is participating on the advisory board ofSouthern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education / Extending Roots of Fresh Stops Markets across the Southeast Region, a multi-year projectled bythe University of Kentucky, University of Tennessee, New Roots in Louisville, KY, and SSAWG, a collection of comparable foodshare and distribution organizations. In Year 1, this resulted in plans for two learning opportunities: New Roots will visit Farmer Foodshare in September to learn from all three Community Foodshare partner sites, and Farmer Foodshare and its three partner sites also will present at theCommunity Food Systems Conference in December. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In October, we will collect and disseminate results of the first year of programming and use those insights to refine programming for Year 2. While we await those results, the Community Foodshare site teams are anticipating these additional tweaks: CIP will continue its current programming as well as an ongoing exchange of information regarding how to better integrate black farmers and food into the program. RM plans to continue its CSA but offer both half- and full-share options to better suit the needs of its community. TTCF will experiment with additional models of marketing its food distribution, including a mobile neighborhood market in the 3 communities where the majority of Burmese refugees are congregated as well as at Piedmont Health Clinic, where many refugees receive medical care. They also will increase their efforts to identify and enroll community members who are eligible for SNAP;identify additional community health needs through focus groups;support farmers who are selling through informal channels within the refugee community;and identify additional refugee communities (from the DRC, Congo, Syria) where there is significant cultural overlap and interest in Asian vegetables and investigate opportunities to distribute produce to them.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The Community Foodshare (CFS) project is a cross-sector collaboration between Farmer Foodshare (FF), Reality Ministries (RM), Transplanting Traditions Community Farm (TTCF), Communities in Partnership (CIP), and other local farms. It uses innovative and entrepreneurial approaches to promote long-term food security among low-income, food-insecure community members in 3 diverse communities in the Triangle region of North Carolina: Mixed-income, demographically diverse families and adults with developmental disabilities in Durham County who identified isolation and a predominance of unhealthy food as key challenges are served by RM. Primarily low-income African American families in the Old East Durham neighborhood who identified cuts to SNAP and lack of fresh food in their neighborhoods as a challenge are served by CIP. Low-income Burmese and Karen refugees living in Chapel Hill (Orange County), who come from an agrarian culture and seek ongoing access to nutritious and familiar foods in an unfamiliar country, are served by TTCF. To address these needs, the Community Foodshare project uses variations on a collective buying model designed and implemented by community members to source the foods they want in ways that work for them. The project also involves creating learning opportunities to help community members learn to grow or cook food and build their capacity to engage their communities, building self-reliance. CFS methods and services are democratically developed, giving voice and influence to primarily low-income participants in naming how best to offer their communities access to locally grown food and nutrition education. They also constitute a replicable model for equitable, community-driven food access and education that can last beyond the period of the grant. Goal 1: Increase reliable and consistent access to healthy and culturally appropriate food among low-income community members. In Year 1, theCommunity Foodshare program completed 31 fresh food distributions across three program sites, serving more than 1,000 low-income community members with fresh, culturally appropriate food sourced by North Carolina farmers -- far more participants than the 300 anticipated. Because the 2019 Community Foodshare season stretches into October, there also will be additional food distributions. At the conclusion of the 2019 CFS season, community members at each site will participate in a survey assessing the percentage of participants who report increased consumption of fruits and vegetables. Goal 2: Strengthen existing food and value chain resources in the community, including access to training for local farmers and low-income participant access to SNAP-EBT. In Year 1, the Community Foodshare program engaged with 33 North Carolina farmers about sales opportunities and product mix, resulting in $22,773 in produce sales overall to a new customer base. Nine of the 33 are female farmers who are part of the TTCF Karen community.TTCF offered them 8 education trainings coveringtopics such as crop planning, sustainable agriculture, business and marketing. These farmers subsequently grew three varieties of Asian produce that were desired by the Burmese communityand otherwise unavailable. Farmer Foodshare is supporting these growers in selling to other wholesale customers (grocery) outside of Community Foodshare and is supporting connections between CIP and a local black farmers market. Farmer Foodshare also provided EBT training to each site team, none of which had experience in accepting SNAP-EBT. In this first year, participation was low, with approximately 9 participating at TTCF. The payment models chosen by two of the three sites (significant subsidization at CIP and sliding scale payment at RM) reduced the need for individuals to use their benefits through this program. Goal 3: Build among low-income community members the skills and confidence needed to achieve food self-sufficiency. In keeping with Community Foodshare's intent to provide learning opportunities that suit the unique needs of each community, during Year 1, Farmer Foodshare met with each site team to determine the programming they wished to offer. CIP elected to partner with other local organizations to offer related resources, such as career counseling and information about children's nutrition programming,to enrich the experiences of participants at their monthly food distributions. One participant has found employment at Farmer Foodshare. RM and TTCF offered 20 taste tests and weekly distributions of vegetable handling instructions and recipes throughout the 2019 Community Foodshare season. RM also enabled 30 participants to engage in its existing farm and cafe programs to deepentheir understanding of how fresh food is grown and prepared.In addition, two RM participants with intellectual/developmental disabilities who do not have other paid work are employed through Community Foodshare. TTCF's educational efforts involved the translation of Burmese recipes into written form through an oral history project andcommunity presentations. TTCF also employs 3 refugee farmers to grow food for the Community Foodshare program. Farmer Foodshare partnered with external evaluators to create pre/post participant surveys that would meet the unique needs of each site's participants, an organizational assessment for partner organizations, a tracking device for logging engagement with farmers, and a calculation tool for placing wholesale orders. The process of developing and implementing these devices has underscored the importance of factoring in cultural differences in evaluation design. The impact of the first year of programming will be better understood following the evaluation period in October 2019. To enable the learnings to extend into additional communities and learn from others' best practices, Farmer Foodshare is participating on the advisory board ofSouthern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education / Extending Roots of Fresh Stops Markets across the Southeast Region, a multi-year projectled bythe University of Kentucky, University of Tennessee, New Roots in Louisville, KY, and SSAWG, a collection of comparable foodshare and distribution organizations. In Year 1, this resulted in plans for two learning opportunities: New Roots will visit Farmer Foodshare in September to learn from all three Community Foodshare partner sites, and Farmer Foodshare and its three partner sites also will present at theCommunity Food Systems Conference in December.
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