Progress 07/01/23 to 06/30/24
Outputs
Target Audience:Mill City Grows (MCG) is conducting our project, Improving Public Health In Lowell With Food Security and Sovereignty,in the city of Lowell, MA, which has more than 115,000 residents. This year, this project served more than 15,000 people. MCG participants reflect Lowell's diversity. They represent 20 countries of origin and speak 17 languages. Half identify as people of color, and 87% are from low-moderate income households. In the Lowell Community Food Assessment 2022 (Lowell CFA) we found that Lowellians income is 25% lower than the state median, and 42% below the recommended living income for Middlesex County (MIT, 2022). 60% of Lowell residents are renters, and 55% of renters in Lowell are cost burdened, meaning they spend more than one-third of their income on rent (U.S. Census ACS 2010-2019). The average cost of infant child care in MA is $20,913, which is significant as the number of young families in Lowell is on the rise. This is more than in-state college tuition and 31% more than average Lowell rent (Economic Policy Institute's State of Working America Data Library, 2020). Lowell includes 5 Qualified Opportunity Zones Census Tracts, and this project impacts residents of these QOZs in Lowell. Lowell has a significant "grocery gap," with neighborhood disparities in access to fresh-food vendors. Some areas of the city have walkable access to food vendors with 3 or fewer fresh fruits/vegetables available, according to the Lowell Community Food Assessment Map 2021. Individuals who rely upon public transportation, paid rides, and rides from family and friends are less likely to be able to afford food than those with their own vehicles, those who walk, those who bicycle, and those who pay for food delivery. Survey and focus group data also indicated that time to shop and cook, transportation or proximity to food retail, and access to desirable foods are also major barriers. Residents are interested in more food education and access to urban agriculture. These barriers to fresh, nutritious foods contribute directly to diet-related health conditions in our community. Lowell Community Health Center (Lowell CHC) is a federally-qualified health center that serves more than half of the city's residents; they are MCG's key partner in Food is Medicine programming and tailored farm shares. Among Lowell CHC patients (2020), fully one-quarter (25.98%) had hypertension, 13% were diagnosed with diabetes, and 10% have asthma, which can be triggered or exacerbated by some additives in processed foods. CFA resident survey data (Lowell CFA, 2022) shows that racial/ethnic disparities are staggering. While 26% of white respondents report not having enough money to buy the food they want to eat, almost twice as many of Hispanic/Latinx respondents (51%) report this hardship. Likewise, Asians (45%) and Black/African Americans (35%) are more likely to be unable to afford food than white people. Asian and Hispanic/Latinx residents, compared to their white counterparts, are 33% more likely to have to make difficult decisions about spending their money, more often choosing necessities like rent or medical bills over food. MCG food access programs include Mobile Markets, weekly Veggie Boxes, and school and community gardens. Our food education includes gardening, cooking and leadership skills for people of all ages. We empower our participants as advocates for food justice and food sovereignty. ??MCG's program design comprises three core areas that, together, result in sustainable, improved food access: Locally Grown Food: Each year, our programs serve over 15,000 people and produce over 20,000 pounds of food that are distributed back to the residents of Lowell. Holistic Community Education: From school-based programs to gardener training programs, education is embedded in our work to ensure that residents are actively engaged in creating a food secure community. Advocacy: We have always advocated at the local, state and national levels. Now, the Lowell Food Policy Council mobilizes residents to take action on the findings of the 2022 Community Food Assessment. Changes/Problems:Due to the loss of a couple key staff members we ended up doing fewer cooking classes than we initially anticipated in 2023/24. The team that would be working on these classes instead focused their efforts on the in school programming, which includes plant-based cooking and nutrition education, as well as the CSA Food Is Medicine programming which includes recipes and nutritional advice that supplement their monthly veggie boxes or Mobile Market vouchers, and help treat chronic illness. We have plans to include more family-style cooking programs in 2024/25 We have not yet developed a good way to track the pounds of food produced by Market Gardeners. We can estimate production based on acreage, but our only ability to finely track their production is through our direct purchasing, which is increasing in 2024. We plan on working on this data collection issue in 2025. What opportunities for training and professional development has the project provided?In 2023-2024 school year we conducted trainingswith the Lowell Public Schools Principals, Vice Principals, and School Community Managers about what our programs offered and how to get our programming into their schools. Our School Education team also hosted a Professional Development for teachers in August in collaboration with Mass Audubon. In 2023 Dai Kim and Jessica Wilson attended the USDA Community Food Project conference in New Orleans, LA, where they attended presentations by other grantees and by the USDA about the other types of work being conducted across the country as part of this grant. Since January 2024 we have participated in the Community of Practice, focus groups, 1:1 interviews and consulting, and other professional development and technical assistance provided by the ISED staff. We provided technical assistance to the local growers and Market Gardeners we work with, including: Wash and Pack operation and produce safety Technical Assistance providedin the field Tillage, bed prep, and soil health assistance and training Irrigation training and set up assistance SNAP technical assistance How have the results been disseminated to communities of interest?We have yet to publish any results from this project as we are just completing our first year, however, the products described earlier in this report are some of the ways we are communicating to and educating the public about our programs. These include weekly newsletters to our CSA and market participants who are enrolled in the Food Is Medicine program andmonthly newsletters to community gardeners. We translate our Mobile Market schedule and communications as well as flyers for our Plant Sale and Seed Swap events (community events to increase access to seeds and seedlings)into 9languages (Khmer, Haitian Creole, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Kinyarwanda, Lao, Pashto, and Vietnamese). These flyers are disseminated through our main organizational newsletter, social media, through our Community Partners and at in person outreach events as described in the reporting above. What do you plan to do during the next reporting period to accomplish the goals?In the summer of 2024 we began the Community Dinners programs where a local chef cooks for a group of Lowell residents and presents on the culture of their food. This program will, in part, replace some of the Farm to Table cooking classes originally planned in this grant. During the next grant year we are anticipating much more local purchasing, including sales from our local growers to local institutions. Starting in the winter of 2024 and into the 2025 growing season we will be scaling up our food production at PFWS with more land in production and a full-season crop plan. We are kicking off the Food Forest planning and development in 2025 and are participating in the ADAPT project being conducted by the University of New Hampshire in collaboration with Yale and Dartmouth Universities, which will work to establish a more robust scientific basis for agroforestry in temperate climates. We will be working with their technical assistance teams, our indigenous partners, and community members, to plan and plant the first stages of the Food Forest. We are forming a Community Garden planning committee for the PFWS garden and plan to kick off the build and implementation of the garden with hopefully 30 families ready to garden in the 2025 season.
Impacts
What was accomplished under these goals?
Increase Food Security in Lowell: In the reporting period we conducted the following activities to connect residents to more options for healthy and nutritious meals via cooking classes, education, outreach, recipes, and food delivery, with the following number of participants: 61 Outreach events about food access programming held in Lowell during the reporting period resulted in 126 hours of outreach and reached 1,554 individuals. 8 cooking classes were held in during the reporting period with 13 hours of instruction and 106 participants. 310 hours of instruction to over 3,000 students from Lowell Public Schools, Greater Lowell Technical High School, and several area charter schools teaching children about growing, cooking, and eating plant-based foods, nutrition, and gardening. 123 CSA members received weekly newsletters with recipes, nutrition information, and educational materials about the vegetables they were receiving in that week's share 206 families received a weekly veggie box for at least 10 months during the reporting period Over 500 community members volunteered with us during the reporting period, conducting over 2000 hours of work across our sites In the reporting period we increased local produce available to residents of Lowell by increasing marketgarden farm production space. 9 Market Gardeners farmed on over 2 acres of land at our Urban Farm. Produce from these operations went to: The farmers and their families, communities, and neighbors. 2 local businesses, Horne Family Farms, and Craic Sauce, grew produce for their business through this program Farmers in the Market Garden program sold produce back to MCG to stock our Mobile Market and CSA food distribution programs, in total we purchased $609 in the reporting period In the reporting period we began the architectural design process for the Farm Stand and Farm Support buildings at Pawtucket Farm Wildlife Sanctuary (PFWS) that will provide physical locations for the permanent farm stand and the local food hub proposed to be completed in 2026 Increase public access to growing space in Lowell In December 2023 Mass Audubon and the Lowell Parks & Conservation Trust completed their purchase of the PFWS property Mill City Grows began light farming activities on approximately 1 acre of the PFWS property including soil testing, cover cropping, light tillage, and grew pumpkins We worked with the Greater Lowell Indian Cultural Association, as well as the Cowasuck Band of the Penacook Abenaki People to begin plans for the Food Forest, and we conducted tours of food forests throughout New England and in other regions to begin planning the layout and planting for our implementation Increase Local Food System Resiliency During this reporting period we worked with 7 farmers, 6 of whom are BIPOC farmers, to purchase in local produce, support their farming, and provide business development assistance During this reporting period we purchased $16,663 of produce from farms within 30 miles of Lowell which we aggregated to sell via our Mobile Market and CSA programs Of that, $10,957 was from BIPOC growers Improve the Social Determinants of Health for Lowell Residents - Results from our programming surveys for the full reporting period are still pending, however, for 2023 we demonstrated: Of Mobile Market participants surveyed: 58% reported increasing the amount of home cooked meals they have per week due to the market, and 72% reported that the market improved their access to fresh fruits and vegetables Of Community Gardens participants who were surveyed: 95% reported forming social connections in and around the garden, 86% reported eating more fresh fruits and vegetables, and 16% reported experiencing food insecurity within the last 12 months, less than half the city-wide rate of food insecurity which is 35% (Lowell Community Food Assessment, 2022, Jacobs and Slater) In our school surveys, students responded that 83% tried new foods, 81% would eat those new foods again, and 64% would like to garden in the future
Publications
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