Progress 09/01/22 to 08/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:As with nearly all of CSU's programming, this project has three primary target audiences - 1) local community residents who can be served by the Village Market Place Local Food Hub, 2) community organizations and community leaders who can serve as partners for outreach and community engagement, and 3) local food-focused businesses, including regional farmers whose agricultural production can serve as a source for the Village Market Place (VMP) Local Food Hub's products, as well as local food-related entrepreneurs who can help distribute the VMP's products more widely across the South LA community. With respect to the community resident target audience, the neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles (SCLA) has a disproportionately high number of liquor stores, fast-food chains, and corner convenience stores, with a disproportionately low number of access points for health, fresh, sustainably and locally produced fruits and vegetables and value-added products. The area also has a high concentration of low-income community residents, with more than half of the population eligible for Calfresh benefits. With this in mind, CSU's project considers local residents of all ages and backgrounds to be a primary target audience. With respect to the community organization and community leader audience, Los Angeles in general, and South Los Angeles in particular, is home to a variety of non-profit organizations that advance similar community development missions as does CSU. The organization consistently invites other groups to attend events at the PRCWC, in some instance have collaborated with other organizations on the development of events, and have invited local organizations to use meeting spaces in the PRCWC for their own purposes. Since the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, a host of strategic partnerships were developed and expanded to further expand the reach of CSU's programming and the GusNIP incentives, specifically. Overall, connections with community organizations allow CSU to further its mission to build collective capacity at the community level; in addition, these organizations can then share information about the PRCWC and the incentive program to their own members and constituents. With respect to the local food-focused business audience, the state of California has seen significant contraction in terms of overall farmland cultivated and number of working farmers over the last several decades, as market conditions have led to increased consolidation. CSU has a history of providing market opportunities for smaller-scale and sustainability-minded growers who produce food in both rural and urban settings across San Bernardino, Riverside, Fresno, Ventura, Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo counties. With this in mind, CSU's VMP project has continued to cultivate and expand these relationships as a way to support their livelihoods and bring fresh, local produce into SCLA. In terms of local food-focused entrepreneurs and businesses, CSU is committed to using healthy food as a motor for community economic development. Through a variety of entrepreneurial pathways, the food system provides a platform for local businesses to provide vital services for the community while creating jobs and circulating profits locally. CSU will continue to cultivate relationships with local businesses, as well as create new opportunities for individuals interested in food-focused entrepreneurship, in order to advance these aims. Changes/Problems:The online survey tool used by CSU and the Nutrition Incentive Hub to do annual participant surveys that support program evaluation was hacked and the data as polluted by over 5000 erroneous responses. As a result, CSU worked with the Hub staff to screen through data to attempt to salvage survey responses that were genuine. This require shutting down the survey for several weeks during the collection period, and likely screen out authentic replies. As a result, the number of replies was below the target, though a significant number of authenticated replies were gathered. This informed CSU's efforts to disseminate the participate survey in future years to avoid this happening again. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Staff training is always ongoing in terms of the overall functioning of the market, the implementation of CalFresh and the GusNIP incentive program, and interactions with market customers and partners. CSU engages in substantive training and workforce development on an ongoing basis. The organization brought on a number of new leaders, and additional staff who play a key role in the organization's function. CSU also works to refine internal documents to ensure a systematic approach to all aspects of organizational operations on an ongoing basis. These documents generally focus on employee recruitment, ongoing organizational management, and external operations and communication. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?CSU uses multiple forms of communication and outreach to promote and disseminate our work. The organization maintains a list-serve that reaches thousands of local and extra-local stakeholders to keep them abreast of all upcoming activities and outcomes. CSU also maintains an active website and social media presence across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The VMP continued to bring in new local and other mission-oriented vendors into the store, highlighting these additions in regular newsletters, social media posts, and other communications activities. During the peak of the pandemic, digital events and workshops allowed for additional outreach to local residents and other interested audiences. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the coming reporting period, we will be focused on bringing additional retailers on board to expand the reach of the incentive program. This will include developing MOUs, tracking and monitoring tools, providing training to partnering retailers and supporting them as they launch their incentive program, and engaging them in program evaluation.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
During this reporting period CSU continued to update and amend marketing strategies to reach more CalFresh users and notify them of the program. Offering two different models of the incentive requires that the options are laid out effectively to customers so they can make a choice that best suits their needs. Effective strategies have been detailed in store signage highlighting the "Two Ways to Save with CalFresh". We also heavily coordinate marketing with our CalFresh Outreach and application assistance program (funded by another contract). Knowing about the incentive can encourage individuals to apply for CalFresh benefits. In coordination with the CalFresh program we distribute marketing materials at community events such as health fairs, school events and free food distributions. Other marketing efforts include banners and signage outside the store, social media posting and purchased adds, email marketing, and distribution of fliers through door knocking campaigns in the neighborhood. The Village Market Place also worked to increase the volume and variety of eligible items carried in the market, adding more eligible canned and frozen options, and dried fruits. These new items, along with the already robust rotation of fresh seasonal local produce items - helped to attract more incentive users and increase purchases. In order to maintain the program's effectiveness we offer staff training on an on-going basis and review and update our Point of Sale system to property apply the incentive and track use. During summer of 2023 we received a grant from the Nutrition Incentive Hub to offer store gift certificates to shoppers who had used the incentive or who shop with CalFresh to complete a survey. Despite challenges, detailed below, we met our survey goals, and the gift card helped to draw in new customers who could continue to utilize the incentive in the future. Key findings were similar to previous years, including: a majority of respondents have been receiving EBT/Calfresh/SNAP benefits for over a year; a majority of respondents had been using the VMP EBT discount program for more than 6 months; and approximately 96% of respondents rated their experience with the VMP discount program as positive or very positive. Throughout this reporting year, CSU continued its community education, which serves as a central prong in the overall strategic action of the organization and the GusNIP-funded program. Nutrition Education was offered through in person and virtual workshops that highlight seasonal produce available at the VMP and recipes that are simple to prepare and healthy. The demonstrations provide a balance of teaching basic cooking skills, such as cleaning and dicing different varieties of vegetables, and different methods of cooking (braising, steaming, and sautéing), and highlight the use of herbs and cooking methods that bring out flavors while reducing the use of unnecessary fats and salt. The workshops are offered in coordination with other events, such as gardening workshops, informational pop-ups, wellness events and CalFresh enrollment events. These coordinated activities were effective in connecting with CalFresh enrolled and eligible people and promote the GusNIP incentives, as well as other wraparound support services that CSU offers local community members. CSU's work to support the viability of local food system efforts through community partnerships and equitable economic development strategies remained a central component of the organization's work throughout this initial project year. As an example, in 2023 CSU partnered with the Los Angeles County Department of Consumer and Business Affairs on a contract to distribute $4 million dollars in grants to small businesses across Los Angeles County working to increase access to healthy food. Along with funding, grantees will receive technical assistance to address organizational needs - including enrolling to accept SNAP EBT. Overall, during the project period CSU executed $97574 at the VMP Market in total retail sales. Fifty-three percent of total sales were EBT transactions, totaling $51,390. Of these EBT sales, $34,789, or 68% were on produce, and $28,508 of GusNIP incentives were redeemed.
Publications
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Progress 09/01/21 to 08/31/22
Outputs
Target Audience:As with nearly all of CSU's programming, this project has three primary target audiences - 1) local community residents who can be served by the Village Market Place Local Food Hub, 2) community organizations and community leaders who can serve as partners for outreach and community engagement, and 3) local food-focused businesses, including regional farmers whose agricultural production can serve as a source for the Village Market Place (VMP) Local Food Hub's products, as well as local food-related entrepreneurs who can help distribute the VMP's products more widely across the South LA community. With respect to the community resident target audience, the neighborhood of South Central Los Angeles (SCLA) has a disproportionately high number of liquor stores, fast-food chains, and corner convenience stores, with a disproportionately low number of access points for health, fresh, sustainably and locally produced fruits and vegetables and value-added products. The area also has a high concentration of low-income community residents, with more than half of the population eligible for Calfresh benefits. With this in mind, CSU's project considers local residents of all ages and ethnic backgrounds to be a primary target audience. With respect to the community organization and community leader audience, Los Angeles in general, and South Los Angeles in particular, is home to a variety of non-profit organizations that advance similar community development missions as does CSU. The organization consistently invites other groups to attend events at the PRCWC, in some instance have collaborated with other organizations on the development of events, and have invited local organizations to use meeting spaces in the PRCWC for their own purposes. Since the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic, a host of strategic partnerships were developed and expanded to further expand the reach of CSU's programming and the GusNIP incentives, specifically. Overall, connections with community organizations allow CSU to further its mission to build collective capacity at the community level; in addition, these organizations can then share information about the PRCWC and the incentive program to their own members and constituents. With respect to the local food-focused business audience, the state of California has seen significant contraction in terms of overall farmland cultivated and number of working farmers over the last several decades, as market conditions have led to increased consolidation. CSU has a history of providing market opportunities for smaller-scale and sustainability-minded growers who produce food in both rural and urban settings across San Bernardino, Riverside, Fresno, Ventura, Los Angeles and San Luis Obispo counties. With this in mind, CSU's VMP project has continued to cultivate and expand these relationships as a way to support their livelihoods and bring fresh, local produce into SCLA. In terms of local food-focused entrepreneurs and businesses, CSU is committed to using healthy food as a motor for community economic development in historically marginalized communities of color. Through a variety of entrepreneurial pathways, the food system provides a platform for local businesses to provide vital services for the community while creating jobs and circulating profits locally. CSU will continue to cultivate relationships with local businesses, as well as create new opportunities for individuals interested in food-focused entrepreneurship, in order to advance these aims. Changes/Problems:CSU faced a variety of staffing challenges and has had to be nimble and adaptive in order to ensure staff responsibilities are matched to the current needs of the organization and its activities at the PRCWC and beyond. Alongside these staffing changes, the overall leadership transition at CSU required significant management and strategic planning. Ultimately, the volatility of these last several years has required patience, flexibility, and dedication. The good news is that CSU continued to actively and effectively pursue its goals during this project period, has learned throughout the process, and is in a strong position to advance its goals in the years ahead. In addition, the process of participant data collection was delayed due to the overlap between FINI and GusNIP funding, leading to a shortfall in the number of surveys collected in the initial project year. CSU has a clear plan for the second year of the project to reach the 100 survey target as outlined by project advisors. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Staff training is always ongoing in terms of the overall functioning of the market, the implementation of CalFresh and the GusNIP incentive program, and interactions with market customers and partners. Throughout this project year, CSU has engaged in substantive training and workforce development. The organization has added several new staff members who play a key role in the organization's function, and has also worked to support existing staff members grow into more substantive leadership roles. During this project period, CSU also worked to create and refine internal documents to ensure a systematic approach to all aspects of organizational operations. These documents generally focus on employee recruitment, ongoing organizational management, and external operations and communication. As one specific example, a major undertaking of the project period was the refinement of a CSU Employee Handbook, prepared to help employees find answers to common questions and synthesize key points from other official employment documentation. As part of the organization's leadership transition and strategic planning process, organizational leadership and board members developed a module-based series of trainings on practical leadership skills, including budgeting, financing, leadership development, time management, and related topics. These internal organizational efforts provide a strong foundation for CSU to continue its work of promoting healthy food access, increased healthy food consumption, community education, local partnership development, and food-oriented community economic development. CSU staff and leadership are also participating in the California Reinvestment Coalition (CRC) Resilience Fund project, working to reimagine systems of capital centered on communities of color, with a particular focus on developing a food-focused entrepreneurial lending program as part of its South Central Equitable Development Fund approach. Learning from these engagements is also being plugged back into the Equitable Food Oriented Development (EFOD) network through CSU's ongoing engagement as a steering committee member. These and other related activities are vital to the ongoing professional development of all involved in the organization's operations, and effectively position CSU as a leader on food-oriented economic development in South LA and across the country. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?CSU uses multiple forms of communication and outreach to promote and disseminate our work. The organization maintains a list-serve that reaches thousands of local and extra-local stakeholders to keep them abreast of all upcoming activities and outcomes. CSU also maintains an active website and social media presence across Facebook and Instagram. The VMP continued to bring in new local and other mission-oriented vendors into the store, highlighting these additions in regular newsletters, social media posts, and other communications activities. During the peak of the pandemic, digital events and workshops allowed for additional outreach to local residents and other interested audiences. In the first year of this GusNIP-funded project, the resumption in-person engagements and collaborative community events provided a strong opportunity to disseminate information, gather knowledge about community needs, build partnerships, and increase the overall visibility of CSU's operations and the incentive programs. Significant efforts have also been invested in the overall communications and marketing strategy for the VMP from a staffing perspective. A new staff member was hired during this project period to provide social media support, allowing the VMP's communications director to take a broader strategic approach. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?We are continuing to promote and advertise the incentive program in order to attract a greater number of SNAP shoppers. We will also be working to identify the corner stores that we will be partnering with to bring the incentive program to their market. And continuing to expand our nutrition education efforts to reach more community members.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
This project builds upon the long-term work of Community Services Unlimited (CSU) to promote healthy food access and community economic development through healthy food in the South Los Angeles area. Previous funding from what was then-named FINI supported incentive programs during the launch of the Paul Robeson Community Wellness Center (PRCWC), which serves as the operational market and logistical hub for CSU's Village Market Place (VMP) and Soulful Café, as well as an active event and gathering space for relevant community and economic development collaborations. Now funded in part by the GusNIP incentive program, the PRCWC serves as the primary hub through with outreach and transactions related to the GusNIP program take place. Due to delays caused by the Covid-19 pandemic during the FINI grant period, an extension was granted, such that this initial year of GusNIP funding overlapped with the final year of the FINI grant. While the GusNIP funding officially began in July of 2022, this report details activities throughout full reporting period dating back to September 2021. During this initial year of GusNIP support, the VMP has been a fully-operational community market, open five days per week for in-person shopping, with curbside pick-up and delivery also available for residents who prefer to use the VMP's online ordering system. The Soulful Café offered a full complement of freshly-made soups, salads, smoothies, baked goods, breakfast items, and other to-go options. CSU also continued to operate its long-standing produce bag subscription program and its donation-supported grocery bag support for South LA families in need, as well as continued to craft partnerships with local food-focused entrepreneurs to support their work. With respect to the GusNIP incentive program, during this project year, the VMP expanded its EBT incentive programs to offer additional options and greater purchasing power for EBT-eligible items. As per the GusNIP grant terms, the program increased the EBT benefit from 50% to 75%, and also expanded what is covered - while in previous iterations only fresh produce was covered, it now also allows canned, dried, and frozen produce as long as it meets USDA nutritional standards. An additional expansion comes in the form of a second option for redemption, wherein if participants spend $20 on EBT eligible items they can get an additional $20 to spend on produce. As awareness of these expanded incentives increased, more shoppers took advantage of the program through more frequent visits to the VMP and larger purchases. A variety of in-store discounts and deals have also been promoted, operating in concert with the VMP's GusNIP incentive program. During this project year, CSU worked to revamp its data collection efforts, working with its external evaluation consultant and staffers from the GusNIP-affiliated Gretchen Swanson Center for Nutrition in survey development and refinement. These surveys primarily gather information from local residents who use the GusNIP incentive to assess their knowledge and habits related to healthy eating, cooking, and gardening, as well as to provide baseline data about food security and health outcomes. Learning from this survey refinement process has also been used to improve other data collection efforts, optimizing CSU's ability to track participant engagement and progress over time. For this reporting period, approximately 60 survey responses were collected - this was below the target of 100 surveys for the reporting period, but was attributable to the fact that GusNIP funding did not officially kick in until mid-year, as CSU was previously funded by the legacy FINI grant program. Some key findings from the survey include: a majority of respondents have been receiving EBT/Calfresh/SNAP benefits for over a year; a majority of respondents had been using the VMP EBT discount program for less than one year; and approximately 90% of respondents rated their experience with the VMP discount program as positive or very positive. In addition, the surveys provide data about participant food security, including: approximately 25% of respondents reported that they were hungry at some point in the last 30 days because there wasn't enough money for food; nearly 70% of respondents have received free groceries at some point since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic; and approximately 40% of respondents report that Covid-19 has made it hard for their household to get fresh fruits and vegetables. The survey also captures baseline data on general attitudes and behaviors related to eating and cooking. Moving forward, funding from the GusNIP incentive program will allow for ongoing evaluation of the impact of these incentives on customer purchasing habits, as well as attitudes and behaviors related to healthy food and cooking. Throughout this project, CSU continued its community education, which serves as a central prong in the overall strategic action of the organization and the GusNIP-funded program. After putting in-person gatherings on hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this initial year of the GusNIP project saw the resumption and expansion of in-person activities that highlighted the role of the PRCWC as a center for community wellness, as a well as a site that sparks critical conversations related to food and its connections to social and racial justice. Garden Gateway Workshops (GGW) were back on-site (with in-person instruction livestreamed for virtual participants), featuring a mix of cooking-focused workshops and urban gardening-focused workshops. One exemplary workshop focused on high yield quick growing plants and cooking pesto with wild weeds. In addition, monthly "Morning of Wellness" events were held on Saturdays that featured a host of activities related to exercise, healthy dietary practices, and culturally-relevant holistic health. These in-person engagements efforts were continuously used to connect with local residents and promote the GusNIP incentives, as well as other wraparound support services for local community members, such as the Green Savings program, which promotes rebates and discounts with the LADWP.
Publications
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