Progress 11/01/23 to 10/31/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Linwood Property Inc.'s project, FY2022 USDA-NIFA-CFP-008683, takes place in a low-income community of color within the east side of Kansas City, Missouri. We are located on the Linwood Area Ministry Place (LAMP) Campus which is nestled on the border of the Ivanhoe and Key Coalition neighborhoods. These communities are designated as a food desert by the USDA and, therefore, are denied the opportunity to access healthy good options as well as local agriculture markets due to limited transportation and other socio-economic barriers. While our project serves urban core residents in the 64109, 64111, 64127, 64128, and 64130 zip codes we enthusiastically serve those who live in the greater Kansas City metro area. Neighborhood residents, community members and families living within our service area comprise the majority of our clients. We work closely with two neighborhood associations, Ivanhoe Neighborhood and Key Coalition, to engage and mobilize participation in programming. Due to LAMP's location we enthusiastically serve residents who have direct access to our campus, however, with our integrated community service approach we have connection to a larger population through our community partners who have offices in our facility. Our community partners who offer services here on the LAMP campus are: • ReDiscover- community mental health clinic for substance use recovery • Front Porch Alliance- an organization specializing in "Parents as Teachers" programming and other early childhood education opportunities. • ReStart- a nonprofit organization that empowers individuals and families to prevent, navigate or end homelessness and are our lead referral agency for Linwood Gardens, our on-site supportive housing facility. • KC Digital Divide- A digital equity nonprofit that offers computer classes and resources to connect residents to the internet. • Linwood Gardens- our supportive housing apartments for families starting anew after surviving domestic violence. Through these nonprofits, who we refer to as community partners, our programming has a deeper reach into the neighborhood, community and region. During this reporting period for our grant our program was able to integrate healthy eating lifestyle changes with their mission purpose. We accomplished this with garden, market and kitchen programming. Furthermore, we had contact with a variety of organizations, institutions and individuals during this reporting period to investigate future partnerships. We accomplished by creating an inventory list of potential partnerships with organizations that align with our community food project grant work. As of the fourth quarter in 2024we met againwith a variety of nonprofits, for profit entities and universities who we had contacted in the previous year. Those entities includedKansas State University Extension, University of Missouri Extension, University of Missouri Kansas City, Cultivate KC, Kansas City Community Gardens, Giving Grove, Boys Grow, New Roots for Refugees, PC's for People, Per Scholas, KC Can Compost, Tamale Kitchen, Nadines Lemonade, Royale Network, Woodland City KC, Ophelias Blue Vine, Dirtbeast, City Roots, Flora and Fauna. Changes/Problems:No problems to report, however, we did make changes to our approach with regards to production, distribution and usage of the shared use kitchen. 1)Production: In 2024 we moved into a market garden farming approach to improve the amount of produce grown. This has proved to be a more advanced and efficient way to grow produce for community access. An establishment of a farm apprentice was added to our approach as well. 2)Distribution: In 2024 we honored a request by a neighborhood group who wanted to manage and host a seasonal farmers market. Therefore, LPI did not operate this component of the grant. Instead a direct to consumer model was adapted to fit our goals and achieve our outcomes. 3)Shared Use Kitchen: LPI and ReDiscover created a partnership that utilized our production approach along with the shared use kitchen to integrate fresh fruits and vegetables into the food system on the LAMP campus. Our original approach had multiple users activating the kitchen in an educational setting and to allow for farmers to value add. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Our program has settled into two foundational components with regards to training and professional development: i) Farm Apprentice, ii) Food Service/Caterer. 1)As previously mentioned in 2024 the program began operating a more professional production farming model. We partnered with a local urban farm that used for profit techniques for a non profit setting. This turned out to be much more successful as far as increasing yields and distribution of produce. In order to achieve our goals we brought on a farm apprentice to learn about farming and to help our program succeed. The program partnered with Kansas State University to assist with the farm apprentice selection. Kansas State University manages a program called "Growing Growers" that connects apprentices with farms and also offers classroom agricultural education. Our program was chosen by an apprentice and assisted with our production approach during the 2024 season. The educational programming component was managed by Kansas State University and our program offered the hands-on farming education component. 2)In partnership with ReDiscover through our shared use kitchen program we were able to advance the development of a start up food service/caterer business. During the 2024 season this start up was given access and guidance within our shared use kitchen. The chef was provided with fresh fruits and vegetables from our production system to establish a healthy menu of options for ReDiscover and their clients. It is our objective to continue to assist in the development of this start up and to continue to integrate fresh locally produced fruits and vegetables into their meal planning in 2025. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?LPI's project will maintain allegiance to the stated outcomes described previously in this grant report, however, due to the success in production farming/ distribution model created in 2024 and the partnership with ReDiscover and their food system operations within the shared use kitchen work to strengthen those components will be a priority. Furthermore, due to the interest by a neighborhood partner to manage a seasonal farmers market LPI will not continue to stimulate activity within that grant component. As previously mentioned LPI will use direct distribution to community contacts, campus partners and the LAMP campus food system to achieve improved access to healthy food options. Finally, 2025 will be the final year of LPI's three year grant and will take this opportunity to transition the program into its future identity. Currently LPI is working with partnering organizations to create a transition strategy and plan for the future. This transition process will be a major component of our work in 2025.?
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
1)Improve Food Access:During the first year of our program we achieved this goal through our management of a 30 bed community garden and seasonal farmers market on the LAMP campus site. During the 2024 growing season we made alterations to our production and distribution model. Due to increased demand of produce by our LAMP campus partners and community contacts we established a structured relationship with a neighborhood urban farm as well as managing our campus community garden. By forming this relationship our program was able to increase the amount of specialty crops we had available to distribute to the community. This model adapted our community garden production approach into a professional farming production approach. By doing so we were able to have a structured weekly distribution to our clients and community members. Therefore, in addition to our campus community garden which consists of 30 4' x 12' raised beds we added a ¼ acre of production using a 30" bed spacing system. Farming operations began in March and we harvested produce through October. Harvests were performed on a weekly basis beginning in April and ended in November. During the first year of the program in 2023 distribution was mainly accomplished through a seasonal farmers market that was hosted on the LAMP campus. In 2024 a community group requested to manage the market at another location three blocks from our facility. This request was granted and our support was given to this organization. We offered technical assistance, market infrastructure supplies such as tents, tables and point of sale items. Our program also encouraged participation in incentive programs that were administered at that market. Therefore, we assisted in the establishment of their farmers market and took more seriously the production model previously described. Overall, by providing support to a community led farmers market and taking a more professional farming approach to production our distribution of fresh, locally produced fruits and vegetables increased during the 2024 season. 2)Improve Health of Residents:A foundational component of our program is improving food access, specifically health food access. It therefore suggests that by increasing access to healthy food options those residents who chose to make better food choices will have improved health outcomes. Our program operates with the assumption that healthy food leads to healthy residents, but realizes that this does not have clinical data to support the claim. In 2023 we looked at the "Produce Prescription Program" as a way of partnering with clinical institutions to find evidence to support the claim that healthy food access does in fact improve the health of individuals. Despite our best efforts we were unsuccessful in advancing the partnership to advance a produce prescription program. As mentioned previously, the program focused on improving production to increase distribution to more residents. Therefore, we are operating with the standard assumption that by improving access to increased production of healthy food options we are adding to the healthy lifestyle choices of our residents, clients and partners. 3)Develop Community Shared Use Kitchen Programming: During the first year of our grant our kitchen was under construction and we were not able to offer community programming. We were successful in finishing the kitchen in 2024 and spent the 3rd and 4th quarter of the year working to bring education programming to the kitchen through our LAMP campus partners and community contacts. We had success in building a structured partnership with ReDiscover to use the kitchen. ReDiscover is a healthcare organization that operates an outpatient mental health clinic on the LAMP campus. ReDiscover staff offers support to 100 women daily on the campus and provides two meals a day to these clients. Until recently they had meals being prepared off site and delivered to the campus during meal times. As a way to improve the quality of the food served and a method of integrating locally produced fresh fruits and vegetables into this food system we offered the newly built shared use kitchen for a caterer to cook the clients of ReDiscovers meals here on site. This relationship has proven to be a unique way of adding agriculture into a therapeutic setting. The clients of ReDiscover have always utilized our community garden as a safe space to relax between therapy sessions and use the garden for outdoor therapy sessions during the growing season. With this partnership the clients are able to participate in the growing process and then get to enjoy the produce, prepared in our kitchen, during breakfast and lunch. Moving into the 2025 growing season we have worked with the chef for ReDiscover to help with production planning and crop selection to put more of the produce grown in through our farming concept on the plates of their clients. 4)Develop a Farm to Table Kitchen:As mentioned above the shared use kitchen was completed in 2024 and is now being used by a LAMP Campus partner, ReDiscover, to prepare daily meals for their clients. We anticipate adding educational programming in the kitchen with their clients in 2025 to enhance ReDiscovers therapeutic approach. There is still interest in allowing more uses of the kitchen, however, due to the amount of time and space needed to prepare two meals for 100 clients daily we are not comfortable with adding more users.
Publications
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Progress 11/01/22 to 10/31/23
Outputs
Target Audience:Linwood Property Inc.'s project, FY2022 USDA-NIFA-CFP-008683, takes place in a low-income community of color within the east side of Kansas City, Missouri. We are located on the Linwood Area Ministry Place Campus (LAMP) which is nestled on the border of the Ivanhoe and Key Coalition neighborhoods. These communities are designated as a food desert by the USDA and, therefore, are denied the opportunity to access healthy good options as well as local agriculture markets due to limited transportation and other socio-economic barriers. While our project serves urban core residents in the 64109, 64111, 64127, 64128, and 64130 zip codes we enthusiastically serve those who live in the greater Kansas City metro area. Neighborhood residents, community members and families living within our service area comprise the majority of our clients. We work closely with two neighborhood associations, Ivanhoe Neighborhood and Key Coalition, to engage and mobilize participation in programming. Due to LAMP's location we enthusiastically serve residents who have direct access to our campus, however, with our integrated community service approach we have connection to a larger population through our community partners who have offices in our facility. Our community partners who offer services here on the LAMP campus are: ReDiscover- community mental health clinic for substance use recovery Front Porch Alliance- an organization specializing in "Parents as Teachers" programing and other early childhood education opportunities. ReStart- a nonprofit organization that empowers individuals and families to prevent, navigate or end homelessness and are our lead referral agency for Linwood Gardens, our on-site supportive housing facility. KC Digital Divide- A digital equity nonprofit that offers computer classes and resources to connect residents to the internet. Linwood Gardens- our supportive housing apartments for families starting anew after surviving domestic violence. Through these nonprofits, who we refer to as community partners, our programming has a deeper reach into the neighborhood, community and region. During this reporting period for our grant our program was able to integrate healthy eating lifestyle changes with their mission purpose. We accomplished this with garden, market and kitchen programming as described within our application narrative. Furthermore, we had contact with a variety of organizations, institutions and individuals during this reporting period to investigate future partnerships. We accomplished by creating an inventory list of potential partnerships with organizations that align with our community food project grant work. As of the fourth quarter in 2023 we meet with a variety of nonprofits, for profit entities and universities. A comprehensive list of community contact is as follows: Kansas State University Extension, University of Missouri Extension, University of Missouri Kansas City, Cultivate KC, Kansas City Community Gardens, Giving Grove, Boys Grow, New Roots for Refugees, PC's for People, Per Scholas, KC Can Compost, Tamale Kitchen, Nadines Lemonade, Royale Network, Woodland City KC, Ophelias Blue Vine, Dirtbeast, City Roots, Flora and Fauna. By engaging a broad community of organizations in KCMO we were able to categorize participation opportunities in the next two years of our grant. During the next two years of our grant we will continue to build coalitions as we improve program design, execution and evaluation. Changes/Problems:The LAMP campus has established itself as an institution that helps elevates our community partners through consulting, rent subsidies and technical assistance with regards to program design. When creating our application our main community partner was the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council (INC). At that time, was a tenant in our facility and managing a successful healthy eating, active living program. As a way to advance their mission purpose we sought a grant to buildout a shared use kitchen on the campus and to include them as the program lead of our community food project grant. Since being awarded this grant through NIFA, INC experienced a radical reorganization of their board of directors and was forced to manage a conflict with the community. The organization had a disruption in leadership and financial stability which lead to their abandonment of operations on our campus. LAMP offered as much support as possible including terminating their three-year lease agreement without penalty. This significant program partner change did not alter our approach to the community food project grant. LAMP was able to continue working on our project goals and have been successful at picking up where INC left off. During the second quarter of 2023 INC re-organized and rebuilt its board of directors and added a small staff to continue its operation. LAMP once again offered any assistance including donating supplies and equipment to allow INC the ability to offer healthy eating programming on their site a few blocks from our facility. We coordinated with their staff during the 2023 market and growing season which turned out being a productive partnership. While INC was our main community partner when we submitted our food project grant, we have adapted with no gap in programming despite this issue. Our current campus partnerships are integrated in our garden, market and kitchen programming. LAMP staff worked directly with INC and Ivanhoe/Key Coalition Neighborhood Seniors who participated in the NIFA grant programming in 2023. LAMP saw no change in our programming approach and had no alteration in outcomes in 2023 due to the departure by INC from the campus. We are under the impression that no amendment to the grant is necessary nor additional reporting requirements specified in the award terms and conditions. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?Answer provided with in the narrative above. How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?
Nothing Reported
What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?LPI's project focuses on three program areas: campus community garden, shared use commissary kitchen, and seasonal farmers market. LPI will continue to use these areas as instruments for continued programming on the LAMP campus. The community garden will achieve its goals by offering education opportunities for campus partners, community members and urban farmers. Produce from the garden will be integrated into the campus food system and serve nutritional classes in the kitchen. In 2024 the campus community garden will partner with neighborhood urban framers to offer a campus community supported agriculture program to 25 clients of ReDiscover (mental health nonprofit on the LAMP campus). Our seasonal market will operate twice a month from May through September and will allow access to locally produced fresh fruits and vegetables. LPI will complete the permitting process for the shared use kitchen project and therefore will have a food establishment license. With this certification the kitchen will perform educational programs, value added production for urban farmers and serve as a program space for campus and community partners.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Our project, "Kansas City Community Driven Local Food Access and Education Project" is composed of 4 categories: i) improve food access, ii) improve the health of residents, iii) Develop community shared use kitchen, iv) develop a farm to table kitchen. Below are our accomplishments within each category during the first year of our three-year grant. 1)Improve Food Access: This program component was achieved in two way: management of LAMP campus community garden, and the hosting of a monthly farmers market, as well as assistance in coordination and promotion of a secondary market in the community. Our campus manages a 30-bed community garden that is highly productive due to its integration of market garden techniques that have been adapted to a community garden setting. Our staff plans, produces and distributes produce from our garden as a market farmer would on a for profit farm. Planting began early spring. Using a succession planting strategy we sowed new seeds and added new transplants until the final week of September. This allowed us harvestable produce from April through November. Produce was harvested on a weekly to bi monthly basis. Aggregation and distribution followed. We primarily supplied ReDiscover's clients with prepackaged bags of produce throughout the growing season. Aside from their clients who use the garden as a therapy garden, we allowed for residents of Linwood Gardens access to produce as well. The distribution to those residents were less organized, however, they did participate in the harvesting and preparation of the produce. Clients, customers and community members saw improved access through the two farmers markets that operated within the neighborhood during the 2023 season. These farmers markets allowed for residents to enjoy a positive event in the community and purchase locally produced healthy food directly from farmers that operate in the neighborhood. Both markets (The LAMP Campus Community Market and The Ivanhoe Farmers Market) operated in partnership to provide an improvement in access to healthy food and built community cohesion. 2)Improve Health of Residents: Our program is improving food access to residents of a community that have had limited access to healthy food options. Our program also offers education on incentive programs that allow for residents to purchase more health food options. By doing this we are assuming that greater access to healthy food options improves the health of residents. We do, however, understand that this is only an assumption. During this grant cycle we explored program improvements to make an objective observation that access and consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables does in fact improve the health of residents. In doing so we discovered the Produce Prescription Program. After learning more about this program we are now attempting to partner with a healthcare organization to participate either in this program or create our own. Therefore, we hope to organize a cohort to pilot such a program. By taking a clinical approach we can with confidence report that access to and consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables does in fact improve the health of residents. 3)Develop Community Shared Use Kitchen: During the 2023 season our shared use kitchen was under construction. While this was inconvenient to host food and nutrition programming it has allowed us to apply for a food establishment license and operate as a production kitchen as well as offer a variety of classes to the public. We are set to be in compliance with the City of Kansas City's Public Health Department early first quarter 2024. 4)Develop a Farm to Table Kitchen: In 2018-2019, through a planning grant awarded by the Missouri Department of Agriculture, LAMP worked in partnership with the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council to develop a feasibility study/business plan for our farm to table kitchen. After the completion of this exercise LAMP was awarded a grant through the City of Kansas City to renovate our farm to table kitchen which would then be in compliance with the standards of a food establishment such as a restaurant or for-profit commercial kitchen. LAMP began the renovation project in 2022. The kitchen renovation project is nearing completion and once completed, an application will be made to obtain a food establishment license. With this license the kitchen will have the authority to offer food businesses the opportunity to rent the commercial space and advance their business. Therefore, we will establish protocols for the use of the kitchen once this license is obtained.
Publications
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