Progress 09/01/18 to 09/30/19
Outputs
Target Audience:Our target audience for this project is members of the South Nashville Promise Zone (NPZ Subzone 3) who live in the third poorest zip code in the state of Tennessee. Our neighbors experience a series of barriers to health which include the absence of a grocery store, lack of transportation, and air pollution from the convergence of three major highways around their neighborhood. Predominantly African American, our neighborhood suffers from racially denominated city planning legacies that include redlining, dumping, polluting industries, and vehicle pollution from the city, interstate, and rail transportation. Among many adverse health impacts, these negative determinants to health have resulted in an absence of healthy food and the pharmacies needed to treat diet-related and air-quality related illnesses. We work directly with residents of the neighborhood, who compose the majority of FEAST--our local food policy council. In addition to residents, we have a principal of a local school, local pastors, nonprofits who work in the neighborhood and around the city, a lawyer who works in the neighborhood, and the director of the community center. These and the decision-makers, residents, and direct service providers who have leadership roles in the community. Their reputation and community legitimacy make FEAST an ideal team to communicate findings, events, and ideas both from and to the food policy council. Changes/Problems:
Nothing Reported
What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Three members of FEAST attended the Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group which provided professional development on a number of topics relevant to our project, including urban farming, racial equity in the food system, and urban farm tours. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The results of the Food Security Report have been shared with the members of FEAST who have the responsibility to disseminate the information to the churches, non-profits, schools, and neighborhood organizations of the target neighborhood. Part of our project plan includes meeting with Laurence Hall who heads the Faith and Community Based Organizations Office of the Mayor's Office. Placing the food and health themed film projects on YouTube will be a part of our information dissemination . Distributing the project outcomes to Trevecca University leaders enables them to disseminate the project findings and outcomes to students and neighborhood partners. On the first week of December, the project PI is a speaker at the Middle Tennessee Local Food Summit in which he will report findings from the grant. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?
Nothing Reported
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
The Food Security Working group was formed and renamed themselves FEAST: Food Equity and Sustainability Team. Community voices were collected through the members of FEAST and included in our Food Security Report. Relevant research was collected and collated in the Food Security Report, along with recommendations for short and long-term actions. An authentically local food policy council was formed--composed exclusively of those who live and work in the neighborhood. Partnerships with local and state actors were created or strengthened. Visioning sessions created a list of priorities, partners, assets, and timelines that were adopted by FEAST for further work in the community. With help from FEAST, Trevecca University submitted a Community Food Project Grant to the USDA June 3, 2019. The Trevecca Urban Farm joined other FEAST members to have a community picnic where we planted fruit trees. Ancillary to the goals of this grant, close to 200 fruit trees were planted by FEAST partners in the neighborhood to address the multiple negative environmental health determinants. Youth film projects have begun in conjunction with a local pastor, a filmmaker from his church, and a local non-profit. Finished products are expected to be completed by the end of 2019.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/18 to 08/31/19
Outputs
Target Audience:The target audience of this project is the South Nashville neighborhoods of Napier, Sudekum, and Chestnut Hills. These decidedly low-income communities and predominantly African American and continue to face the harsh reality of racial inequity. These communities have no access to fresh and healthy food, leading to an overwhelming presence of diet-related illness and health problems in the community. These neighborhoods are under-resourced and physically segregated from the rest of Nashville. Even in the face of such powerful injustice, these communities are still well-organized, powerful, and have crucial assets in place to address the issues at hand. For these reasons, the target audience for this community food project is ready to implement their proposed solutions and make a difference in the lived food reality. ? Changes/Problems:The only major change that TUF has experienced during this planning grant period has been to the research outline that was originally proposed. Entering this planning grant period, TUF proposed the idea and obtained IRB approval for a short survey about people's food history and experiences in the community. After the first few FEAST meetings and after discovering that a local organization had just conducted a similar survey, TUF decided to not move forward with the execution of the survey. Instead TUF relied on already existing research and on the information obtained from the lived experience and academic understanding of the FEAST group. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?TUF has had the help of two AmeriCorps VISTAs throughout the duration of this planning grant. The training and professional development aspects of this project have largely been through their respective experiences and the skill development they have gained through helping TUF to execute this grant period. These VISTAs have learned and gained confidence in minute taking, event planning, and in the logistics of community organizing and advocacy. Another program based out of TUF is a youth employment program in the "green collar" field called TreeCycle. This program trains local youth in environmental work and then pays them to do that work throughout their neighborhood. These youth have been trained throughout the year and will be included in the Community Food Project phase of this work. In this way, the training and professional development these youth have gained through another program has been a critical part of the training required for this work How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?The inclusion of a broad range of community voices and FEAST's dependence on community partnership has meant that getting the word out in the Napier, Sudekum, Chestnut Hill neighborhoods in South Nashville is not and will not be difficult for TUF. One of the members of FEAST is employed to knock on doors in the community and talk about local issues. As a part of her commitment to FEAST, she is willing to talk about our cause at the doors as well. Additionally, South Nashville is an organized community, meaning there are established and effective ways of spreading the word about this work. ? What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the upcoming reporting period, TUF will continue on with the FEAST meetings and with the community work done by the FEAST members. The intention of this continued work done by the food security working group will be to solidify the plans for how to execute and implement their comprehensive vision for addressing food insecurity. FEAST will work out a long term calendar, will continue to connect community members and stakeholders with one another, will begin to lay the foundation for starting a farmers market in the neighborhood, will connect with the assets and resources that need to be leveraged to do this work, will converse with community champions that will lead and care for the community gardens and orchards and will ultimately meet and work to make sure this project is robust, authentic, and sustainable.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
All of the goals that the Trevecca Urban Farm (TUF) set for the Planning grant period were accomplished authentically and successfully in this reporting period. TUF said promised to develop a comprehensive response to the food desert in the Promise Zone that encompasses the South Nashville neighborhoods of Napier, Sudekum, and Chestnut Hill. TUF has since developed and proposed a robust, community-imagined food project plan. If implemented, this plan will work to eradicate the felt pains of living in the South Nashville food desert. TUF was able to create this plan through the creation of a local Food Security Working Group, which named itself FEAST -- Food Equality and Sustainability Team. This group is comprised of community members and stakeholders such as the principal of Napier Elementary School, a founder of a health equity nonprofit, a local pastor, our local USDA conservationist, community activists, and the local social services coordinator. More specifically, this group has 7 members who "turn their key" in the community, as it was put by one FEAST member, and 5 people who don't necessarily live in the community but have a lot of stake in its well-being. This group was able to effectively collect community voices, articulate food challenges and opportunities, identify key partners, identify community leaders and resource holders, and communicate effectively with our community partners. The work of FEAST ultimately led to a community energizing and authentic Community Food Project Plan, for which TUF recently submitted the grant application. Entering the planning grant phase, TUF theorized that this community solution could potentially look like a co-op of a local urban farm and a community owned grocery store. Throughout the FEAST meetings, however, this idea changed and adapted to be more authentic to the community. In these changes, FEAST continued to express the need and want for a network of urban farming systems that would take the form of community gardens and urban, food producing orchards. FEAST established that this urban gardening network should be maintained and run by local youth so that the food plan can also address job insecurity and job readiness training. FEAST also identified the need and desire for a local, urban farmer's market in the community. This farmer's market will sell the food produced by the local urban farming network and will also employ and empower youth to work at the market. This multifaceted and comprehensive plan to address food insecurity in South Nashville is the successful product of FEAST and will be implemented if TUF receives further funding. Due to the development and proposal of this robust food plan, this Planning grant period has been a productive and fruitful one for the Trevecca Urban Farm and whole South Nashville Community. ?
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