Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
Mill City Grows (MCG) works toward food justice in Lowell, MA. Our programs connect food access, food education, and advocacy, as we bring people together to grow and learn in community. We envision that Lowell will be known for its innovative approach to food production where residents are engaged actors in creating a food secure community that promotes the ability to grow, consume, and distribute healthy, locally produced food on land that is seen as a vital resource for the community and is protected for food production.Based on the recommendations of our 2022 Community Food Assessment, this project will focus on 4 main areas of work: increase food security in Lowell; increase public access to growing space in Lowell; increase local food system resilience; and improve the social determinants of health for Lowell residents. Outcomes will include increasing education points at markets and events; increasing access to fresh produce; adding 1.8 acres of publicly accessible growing space; providing 200+ families with a CSA; educating families on SNAP/HIP; creating a year-round farm stand; developing culturally connected cooking curriculum with 20+ classes a year.Community led programming is crucial to our ongoing success and an integral part of the project. We will be working with the newly created Lowell Food Policy Council, local growers from socially disadvantaged groups, and low income residents. This project will improve the social determinants of health for Lowell residents by increasing resilience and food security in the local food system.
Animal Health Component
0%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
(N/A)
Applied
(N/A)
Developmental
(N/A)
Goals / Objectives
This project has 4 goals: increase food security in Lowell, increase public access to growing space in Lowell, increase local food system resilience, and improve the social determinants of health for Lowell residents. These goals represent the recommendations from the 2022 Lowell Community Food Assessment as well as the ongoing work of MCG and community partners across the city.Increase Food Security in Lowell - The 2022 Lowell Community Food Assessment clearly establishes a high level of food insecurity across the city with 37% of respondents indicating they cannot currently afford food. Additionally, the residents who participated in the assessment strongly advocated for more affordable fresh produce, and more affordable access to food in general. Objectives and outcomes of this goal:Connect residents to more options for healthy and nutritious meals via cooking classes, education, outreach, recipes, and food delivery programs such as CSAs and prepared meals as described in the activities section below. Specifically outcomes are:500+ residents receiving education about food access programming each year beginning in 202320+ cooking classes per year beginning in 2023100+ residents receiving education about plant-based cooking beginning in 2023100+ families receiving a weekly veggie box for 10 months per year starting in 2023200+ families receiving a weekly veggie box for 10 months per year by 2026Increase local produce available to residents of Lowell - This will be achieved with increased publicly accessible growing space including: community gardens; marketgarden space farm production space; and a food forest. We will also implement new retail access points that support SNAP, Massachusetts Healthy Incentive Program (HIP) andother food access programs. Specifically outcomes are:35 new garden beds in an unserved neighborhood by 202615,000+ lbs of additional produce per year by 2026A new year-round publicly accessible farm stand that accepts SNAP, HIP, andother food access benefits by 2026A new year-round publicly accessible farmers market that accepts SNAP, HIPand other food access benefits by 2024?Increase public access to growing space in Lowell - In the Urban Agriculture recommendations from the Lowell CFA access to growing space was the number one priority for residents. In the Pawtucketville Farm Wildlife Sanctuary project we directly address this demand from Lowellians by increasing land access for Lowell residents by 2.8 acres and creating urban agriculture infrastructure that is accessible to the public. Specifically outcomes are:.3 acres of growing space dedicated to community gardens, market gardeners, and residents who want to grow culturally significant crops, accessible beginning in 20251.5 acres of public farm production space that will grow crops that are culturally significant to communities across Lowell, pick your own crops, and educational farming spaces for children and adults, accessible beginning in 20251 acre of public food forest that will have edible perennials including berries, fruit trees, herbs and spices, indigenous food plants and more, accessible beginning in 2026Increase Local Food System Resiliency - The COVID-19 pandemic greatly impacted Lowell with food shortages, inconsistent availability of fresh produce, rapidly shifting inflation, and major shifts in clients at emergency food providers. By investing in our local food system we can ensure that Lowell is better able to withstand future supply chain disruptions and invest in our local economy. The outcome of this goal are to improve sales for local growers and begin to develop a local food hub Specifically outcomes are:$10,000 in local produce sales through local produce aggregation by 2024$10,000 in local produce sales by institutional purchasers by 2025$25,000 purchased annually from local growers to supply the farm stand by 2026Feasibility plan of a local food hub complete by 2026Improve the Social Determinants of Health for Lowell Residents - Diet, and specifically the inclusion of fresh fruits and vegetables can play a big role in managing chronic illness such as diabetes and heart disease. Our partnership with local hospitals such as the Lowell Community Health Center and Lowell General Hospital has led us to develop a rigorous plan for education, outreach, and accessibility to information and materials to support a healthier diet and to connectit directly to our participants' health conditions.The outcomes of this goal are to give our participants a foundation in nutrition and incorporate more produce into their daily lives.50% of CSA members report eating more fresh fruits and vegetables by 202650% of CSA members report using the recipes included in the education materials by 2026Educate 500+ residents about food benefits and other programs by 202450% of participants in Farm to Table cooking classes increase consumption of fresh produce by 2024Finally, all of our goals and outcomes include a high commitment to accessibility to all of our participants. In Lowell there are over 70 languages spoken and 42% of the city speaks a language other than English at home. In all project activities we are committed to language accessibility for all participants in written communication, outreach and education materials, and live interpretation for Spanish and Khmer at outreach events and classes, and ongoing training for staff in cultural competency. The vibrant immigrant community that makes up this city is one of its greatest assets and we intend to prioritize Lowellians regardless of their preferred language and needs.
Project Methods
The goals of the Improving Public Health project are built on the foundation that improving food security, access to healthy affordable foods, and prioritizing low-income residents from diverse backgrounds will positively shift the social determinants of health for Lowell residents. Our approach to this work is broad, encompassing urban agriculture, retail, investment in local food systems, improving use of food access benefits, education, outreach, and collaboration with community partners. We work with partner agencies and community members to build a food system in which everyone can participate, everyone can access food on their terms, and residents can determine their own access points without stigma or exclusion.With the creation of new gardens, farm space, and a food forest, we are increasing Lowell resident's self-reliance in accessing food. Access to local land and culturally connected food grown by residents increases the opportunity for long term behavior change and investment in local food systems. By granting land access to smaller farmers, we're making it possible for those who cannot afford land to enter the food system as producers. At our community gardens, we keep annual dues affordable ($20) and give scholarships to low-income participants. In recruiting for the gardens we prioritize low income participants to ensure that those with the greatest need have the highest access to land.We work with immigrant and refugee farmers, market gardeners and growers who often struggle to distribute their produce to a wide audience due to limited time, resources, or networks. Our goal to connect local growers with shoppers will improve local food system resiliency and prioritize growers from socially disadvantaged groups. Restaurants, institutions, partner organizations, and emergency food providers frequently ask to purchase our produce, but we are unable to meet the overwhelming market demand. By leveraging our relationships with local growers, purchasers, and a new space with a large wash/pack and refrigeration structions, we can ensure more local produce is available in our community.Our markets accept SNAP benefits as well as the Healthy Incentive Program (HIP), a Massachusetts program which reimburses $40, $60, or $80 per month depending on family size to any customer buying fresh produce with SNAP. Our new, permanent market location will increase access to and usage of these benefits, a significant recommendation from the Lowell Community Food Assessment 2022. Our markets and CSA accept benefits including Farmers Market Nutrition Coupons, MassHealth Flex Services, student subsidies funded by UMASS Lowell, and more. Our existing seasonal markets serve diverse residents with 70% of sales being made through food assistance programs. The creation of permanent, more reliable and accessible retail spaces will increase the number of Lowell residents able to access fresh produce throughout the year.Through partnerships with healthcare providers, dieticians, and faculty and students at the UMASS Lowell department of Public Health, we have been able to create a cooking curriculum as well as work on designing recipes which support people with chronic illness. Our CSA program currently serves 100 households including low income participants with chronic illness. This project would allow us to grow these programs and provide these health and wellness interventions to at least 100 more households. All of the materials generated in this program will be translated into multiple languages and we will be engaging live interpretation services for class delivery and public education projects throughout the city.The Pawtucketville Farm Wildlife Sanctuary will increase our current growing space from 5 to 7.8 acres citywide. It will create new food access points including a year-round accessible farm stand, pick your own fields, community gardens, community farming sites, and a food forest for public foraging. This site is located in a low income, low access community as documented in the USDA Food Access Research Atlas. It is also accessible via bus routes, bike lanes, and is near Lowell General Hospital, several senior assisted living facilities, and the Greater Lowell Tech High School. This site will be an important new access point for Lowell residents to be able to grow, harvest and purchase fresh produce year round, combined with education, written and live interpretation, and knowledgeable staff.MCG has a robust program evaluation process that includes the collection of program data, interviews and surveys with participants, collecting feedback from partner organizations, and routine audits of program equitability, cultural competency, and consistent delivery. To help evaluate this project we will engage Sarah Merion, of Impact Aligned LLC, with whom we worked earlier this year to design a project evaluation dashboard for similar programs. With this consultant we will design data collection systems including:Participant surveysDaily, weekly and monthly logsSales tracking that includes tracking for multiple different food assistance benefits used at the point of saleHIPPA compliant server for our participants receiving MassHealth Flex ServicesDashboards to help inform our annual IOS report Our evaluation methods balance trauma informed data collection with robust internal reporting. Based on the methodology developed in the Lowell Community Food Assessment 2022, where appropriate, we will administer surveys verbally, or as informal interviews, with an interpreter or staff member who speaks the native language of the participant being surveyed. Surveys will be digitized and aggregate data will be analyzed indicating the efficacy of educational programming. Qualitative data from surveys will be collected, with participant information if they consent, to be used as context and steering for program adjustment and/or future projects. MCG routinely collects daily, weekly and monthly information from all ongoing programs including pounds of produce harvested, acreage planted, community garden beds used, participants engaged, education delivered, and materials created. These logs exist from the previous 10 years of programming and the same logs and methodology will be leveraged for this process. Data is collected either through a google form, accessed from mobile devices by staff in the field, or with paper collection in the field which is later digitized. MCG uses Square as our point of sale for markets, which will also be used at the farm stand once it is operational. For our CSA programming we use Salesforce to track participation, payments, personal information about participants, and attendance. Using these two softwares we can very accurately pinpoint the percentage of participants, and sales amounts, who are using food access benefits such as SNAP, HIP, farmers market coupons, Flex Services, University subsidy, and more. This data is used in aggregate and individual data is never shared. Furthermore, we have 7 years of logged information of all produce purchases and sales, the point of origin, the produce items sold, and the quantity sold. This data will be used to track local farm produce sales. In 2021 MCG implemented a fully HIPAA compliant server, data storage and referral systems to administer our MassHealth Flex Services program (this is a pilot program in MA allowing MassHealth patients to use benefits to obtain housing and food services). All of the participants in this program are low income and diagnosed with a chronic illness. Their data will be used in aggregate, however, personal information will only be available to staff members who directly administer the program.