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Posts Tagged ‘hunger’

Traffic-Island Bounty

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on September 17, 2020| 6 Comments »

Photo: Jim Davis/Globe Staff
John Fallon gathers squash at the 8,000-square-foot traffic island in Beverly Farms.

Today my friends surprised me with a bag of apples from a tree in their yard. They are not farmers, but many nonfarmers are getting into growing things these days. Some gardeners are growing especially to share.

Consider the Beverly, Mass., man who appropriated a traffic island for a community garden.

John Laidler reports at the Boston Globe, “Growing up in Beverly Farms, John Fallon developed a talent for cultivating vegetables by helping his Irish immigrant father tend the family’s backyard garden. A half-century later, Fallon is drawing on those farming skills — refined through many years of his own gardening — to help improve the lives of people in need.

“Since 2016, Fallon has been growing vegetables on a traffic island in Beverly Farms and donating them — together with vegetables from his own garden — to local food pantries, homeless shelters, and other organizations that serve low-income families.

“In the first four years of his nonprofit operation, Fallon annually harvested and donated on average 3,000 pounds of produce. This year, in response to COVID-19, he expects to raise that volume to about 5,000 pounds. …

“Now retired as a test engineer in the semiconductor industry, Fallon, 61, cited the need to promote economic and social justice as a motivation for his philanthropic farming. …

“ ‘Everyone should help those less fortunate than them,’ said Fallon, who experienced losing a job himself when he was laid off from his longtime semiconductor job in 2007.

“Fallon’s philanthropy began in 2014 when he donated surplus tomato plants from his home garden to a farming program for inner-city children. …

“In 2016, Fallon came up with the idea of growing crops on the idle traffic island on Hale Street. The state Department of Transportation, which owns the island, authorized him to farm the land for free provided he donate any crops he raised to charity. …

“His 8,000-square-foot Beverly Farms Gardens produces tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, summer squash, regular and golden zucchini, eggplant, broccoli, and acorn and butternut squash.

“Fallon does all the growing and harvesting himself, with occasional help from volunteers, including students from Landmark School in Beverly, and Gordon College’s women’s soccer team. …

“Although his program is self-funded, Fallon has received donations from individuals, local businesses, and churches. The Farms-Prides Community Association helped him purchase compost last year and plans a fund-raising effort to assist him with other expenses.

“ ‘I have watched John over the last five years turn a barren plot of land into a lush, productive garden supplying food to needy families,’ Rick Lord, the association’s president, said by e-mail. …

“Fallon hopes he can inspire others to do similar work. … ‘My vision would be for each town or city to set aside 4 acres, whatever it takes to feed the homeless in their area,’ he said.”

More at the Boston Globe, here. Another take on the story is at the Salem News, here.

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Making Thousands of Meals a Day

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on May 13, 2020| 3 Comments »

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Photo: Celeste Sloman for the Washington Post
In New York City, where the Covid-19 lockdown is putting many residents in danger of going hungry, immigrants at Migrant Kitchen are feeding multitudes.

I always like stories about how much immigrants benefit America, and this one from the Washington Post is a great example.

Richard Morgan writes, “At 5:30 a.m. in a godforsaken industrial crevice of Queens, Daniel Dorado recently waited in a line of mostly undocumented restaurant workers before the opening of Restaurant Depot, a wholesaler like Costco on steroids available only to the industry. His goal was 2,000 meal containers, and, boom, he was in and out in 12 minutes.

“The containers would soon be packed with sumptuous entrees: citrus garlic salmon with Cuban black beans and coconut herb rice, or moussaka-stuffed zucchini with dirty rice and beans, or mojo chicken with chimichurri and roasted potatoes with grilled shishito peppers. …

“Dorado, an American-born son of a Mexican immigrant, has been running what is probably New York’s largest restaurant-quality active cooking operation during the pandemic lockdown, serving 6,000 meals a day.

“Last year he and two former colleagues from Ilili, a Lebanese-Mediterranean restaurant in the Flatiron District, formed the Migrant Kitchen NYC, ostensibly a catering company, which orchestrated an alliance with four other kitchens. …

“As much attention as beleaguered restaurants have gotten in the pandemic’s lockdown, far less attention has been paid to catering companies, which can produce food on a massive scale but not within the limits of a la carte orders available through delivery apps. Enter Migrant Kitchen. They pay wages of $20 to $25 an hour in their kitchen, [Nasser Jaber, a Palestinian immigrant who was an Ilili waiter,] said, and with the four other kitchens pooled 40 largely undocumented workers from Make The Road, a civil rights group — plus workers and volunteers who handle packing and delivery. …

What started out on March 13 with 100 meals to hospitals and shelters quickly grew to 6,000 meals a day to 13 hospitals, four food pantries, three homeless shelters, three senior centers, public housing complexes in the Bronx and Queens, a Queens mosque and dozens of covid-19-infected families. …

“A few days before Ramadan began on April 23, they switched all meals to halal-certified. ‘We don’t just want to give people food,’ Dorado said. ‘We want them to know we took their needs into consideration. We don’t want anyone getting food that they don’t want to eat. It’s for them, not for us.’ For families, Migrant Kitchen also makes grocery bags of staples like eggs and milk, and tucks in chicken tenders or pizza for children. Even diapers. …

“Sam Bloch, [World Central Kitchen’s] director of field operations, laid out Migrant Kitchen’s strength: ‘It’s beautiful, right? How many win-wins can you have? Where the food is coming from, who’s making it, how it’s supporting that individual person, how it’s supporting that [kitchen], and all that built on top of the fact that someone who really needs that plate of food is receiving it.’ …

“Head chef Ryan Graham explained the [Migrant Kitchen] mission: ‘A lot of big-batch cooking … doesn’t monitor seasoning, the flavor, the texture, the veg, the meat, the starch, the digestion, the nutrition.’ By contrast, he noted, he was slow-cooking a sauce that included 20 spices for nine hours. One of his cooks also recommended that a dish’s tomato paste be caramelized. (Bloch called the approach ‘food with dignity.’) …

” ‘I’m trying to keep myself strong. I’m alone but I don’t feel lonely,’ said a 76-year-old Bangladeshi man who lives by himself in the heavy-hit Elmhurst neighborhood of Queens. …

“He said he was ashamed to be publicly identified as in need. He hasn’t left his home since the first week of March. His income is $500 a month. Through [social justice group Desis Rising Up and Moving, DRUM, his Migrant Kitchen meals — two a day — come every afternoon, but, in accordance with Ramadan, he waits until sunset and pre-dawn to eat them. ‘It’s a blessing for old people,’ he said. ‘It’s an example for humanity.’ ”

More here.

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Addressing Food Waste

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 8, 2020| 8 Comments »

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Photo: Fusion/Food Exposed
“On a recent night in New York City, a group of foragers pulled 50 perfectly edible bagels and a bag of untarnished, fresh produce out of the garbage,” wrote Eillie Anzilotti in a Fast Company article. And that’s just the beginning.

Full-time but low-paid workers use food pantries; farmworkers seek out secret donation sites so their kids can eat. And meanwhile, where there is so much hunger, perfectly good food goes to waste.

I was watching the documentary Money, by Manny Kirchheimer, recently and heard an interviewee talk about being a “freegan.” A clearly well-educated and accomplished woman, she just couldn’t bear seeing all the food that goes to waste in New York and joined a freegan group. Of course, I had to look it up.

This explanation comes from a 2018 Fast Company article by Eillie Anzilotti.

“On a cold March night in New York City, snow still on the ground from a late-season nor’easter, a small group gathered around a pile of trash outside a Morton Williams supermarket in Midtown East. There were around 40 to 50 plastic bags piled high. A lot of them held normal waste–discarded packaging, crusts from people’s lunches. But Janet Kalish, an organizer with New York’s freegan group, opened one bag to find around 50 intact, edible bagels.

“Kalish and a handful of dedicated freegans — people who pull edible food from piles of waste in an art commonly known as ‘dumpster diving’ — organize tours in New York every couple of weeks. During meetings, Kalish and her co-organizers will discuss the larger issues of the city’s food system, including why so much edible waste ends up on the street. They’ll give newcomers advice on how and when to forage (late at night but before garbage pickup is ideal), what to look for, and how to make use of their salvaged sustenance.” More here.

If dumpster diving seems too extreme, you may like the impressive array of startups and nonprofits trying to get unused — but good — food to those who need it.

As Scott Kirsner reported in December, “The stats on food waste are staggering: Up to 40 percent of all food produced in the United States is never consumed, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council.

“The bulk of that gets tossed out — by restaurants, stores, and homes, according to ReFED, a California nonprofit that focuses on reducing food waste. And when it winds up in a landfill, it rots and produces methane — a greenhouse gas that is far more potent than carbon dioxide.

But one bit of good news is that there has been an increase in activity locally, on the part of both startups and nonprofits, to try to reduce food waste and ensure that more food gets to people who can’t afford it, while it’s still edible.

“Cambridge Crops, a startup in Somerville, is developing a new kind of protective layer for foods. It’s made from an edible protein extracted from natural silk. The company has been testing its coating on foods such as ground beef, cherries, and spinach leaves, demonstrating that it can inhibit the growth of bacteria and extend the amount of time the food can be sold by as much as 50 percent. The company raised $4 million from investors in July.

“Boston-based Phood Solutions is working on a system that couples cameras, scales, and software in a kitchen — say, at a big hotel or restaurant — to automatically identify what kinds of food are going to waste, and how much of it. …

“The Boston startup Spoiler Alert runs an online trading platform that enables food producers and distributors to get rid of excess inventory by selling it or donating it. Spoiler Alert charges subscription fees to sellers, as well as fees based on transaction volume. …

“Some of the food sold through Spoiler Alert winds up at discount grocery outlets like Daily Table, which sells food that is nearing its expiration date. …

“The nonprofit Food for Free distributed about 100,000 pounds of surplus food in the week leading up to Thanksgiving, says executive director Sasha Purpura. It asks donors such as Harvard University to freeze excess prepared food that would otherwise go uneaten, and then divides it into meals for people in need — including financially strapped students at state and community colleges, Purpura says.

“Food for Free will soon start collecting surplus food from Boston’s two convention centers, and in May the Cambridge biotech Biogen set up a kitchen in Kendall Square for the nonprofit’s exclusive use. …

“Hunger, says Ashley Stanley, ‘is not a problem of supply, but of distribution.’ Her Boston nonprofit, Lovin’ Spoonfuls, tries to address that. It collects food that would otherwise go unsold at grocery stores like Whole Foods and Big Y and distributes it to soup kitchens, safe houses, and after-school programs around the state.”

In the Globe article, you can also read about Boston Area Gleaners, CommonWealth Kitchen, Brewer’s Crackers, and more.

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Getting Food to Folks Who Need It

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on August 21, 2018| 2 Comments »

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Photo: Jim Davis/Globe Staff
Marc Wallerce (left), owner of the Winthrop Marketplace, greets Jeffrey Carson of Mi-Amore as Carson picks up food for distribution to families that need it.

Wow, there are as many ways to get food to people who might otherwise go hungry as there are people who want to end hunger. It was only a couple weeks ago that I posted about a food initiative in Toronto. Here’s one in Massachusetts.

Alison Arnett writes at the Boston Globe, “In 2014, Jeffrey Carson heard an NPR piece about how much food was wasted in America despite ongoing hunger. It hit a nerve with Carson, who himself had grown up in a family dependent on food stamps and had just had his first child, and he determined that he wanted to do something about it. ‘I wanted my daughter to come up in volunteerism that was part of our life,’ he added, not just something ‘we volunteered for once a year.’

“So Carson and his wife, Suzanne, both veterans, began to work on creating a nonprofit in Winthrop where they live. The idea for Mi-Amore seemed ‘so simple,’ says Carson: Food was going to waste — in the United States it is estimated that as much as 30 percent to 40 percent of edible food is wasted each year — and yet there were people who went hungry. As military officers, both he and his wife were used to finding solutions to problems, Carson says.

“There were many snags along the way, but today Mi-Amore provides food for 40 elderly people, single-parent families, and recovering addicts in Winthrop. Unusual among food relief programs where recipients must go to a central soup kitchen or food aid office open only restricted hours, Mi-Amore’s eight volunteers, all Winthrop residents, pick up the donated food three times a week and deliver it to the homes of the recipients. Most families get at least one delivery of food a week. The program has a board of town residents, and donations of surplus food from the Winthrop Marketplace, several restaurants, assisted-living centers, and schools. …

“Half of the recipients are children. When asked about recovering addicts, Carson says that ‘recovering’ can be a loose term but is quick to recount what one board member, a school nurse, told him. ‘Having food in your refrigerator sometimes is the line between recovering or not,’ she said, adding that the stress of no food can push some over the edge.

“The beginnings of Mi-Amore, in its third year, weren’t smooth, Carson says. After he and his wife did the structural work to set up a nonprofit, he contacted restaurants and other businesses about donating food that might go to waste, surprised when he got refusals or no answers. But then, Carson said, he met two women, Amie Hanrahan of The Arbors Assisted Living Communities and Ann Vasquez of La Siena restaurant, who immediately ‘got it,’ Carson says. … From that beginning, the program started to gain momentum.”

I’m not really surprised that two former military officers have shown perseverance when faced with the challenges of launching something new. As Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton, a former Marine, has often said in the context of what sorts of people he’d like to see run for office, veterans are generally people who are motivated by public service more than personal gain.

Jeffrey and Suzanne Carson strike me as perfect examples of veterans motivated by public service.

More at the Boston Globe, here.

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Toronto Chef Fights Food Waste

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on August 7, 2018| 9 Comments »

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Photo: The Guardian
North America’s first pay-what-you-can grocer is located in Toronto and aims to keep overstocked but perfectly good food from going to a landfill.

I love stories about efforts to get surplus fresh food into the hands of people who might be going hungry otherwise. And keeping food out of landfills at the same time means killing two birds with one stone. But true confession: I am wasteful. I use the yummy inner parts of celery and lettuce first, and when I get around to the outer parts, they don’t look worth saving. Do I put on my thinking cap and make these leftovers into soup or something? I do not. Sometimes I compost them. I’d be interested in your ideas.

In Canada, a grocery store may have the best solution yet for food that is still good to eat but overstocked.

As Ashifa Kassam writes at the Guardian, “In a bright, airy Toronto market, the shelves are laden with everything from organic produce to pre-made meals and pet food. What shoppers won’t find, however, is price tags. In what is believed to be a North American first, everything in this grocery store is pay-what-you-can.

“The new store aims to tackle food insecurity and wastage by pitting the two issues against each other, said Jagger Gordon, the Toronto chef who launched the venture earlier this month.

“Every provision is donated by a network of partners across the region, and many of them – from blemished or misshapen produce to staples that are nearing their expiry date – would have otherwise ended up in landfills. …

“The store, which also includes a pay-what-you-can bakery and cafe, is the latest initiative to emerge from his non-profit firm, Feed It Forward. The roots of the organisation trace back to 2014, borne out of Gordon’s frustration at the C$31bn (£17.6bn) worth of food that ends up in Canadian landfills and compost sites each year while one in eight Toronto households struggles to put food on the table. …

“Prices are entirely up to the customer. ‘If you can afford to pay more, go right ahead,’ said Gordon. ‘If you can’t pay for what you have, then don’t.

“ ‘What I have noticed is people look into the baskets, try to calculate what it is and then say, “is this acceptable?” And I just say, “are you kidding me? Whatever you can give is fine, but if you are unable to make a donation, we won’t let anyone go hungry.” ‘ …

“Any profits are poured back into the store, covering costs such as rent and the transport of provisions. More than 600 volunteers help to staff the store and Gordon supplements its income with fundraising events, donations and revenue from his catering business. …

“As the store nears its closing time, Gordon surveys its largely empty shelves. ‘I’m a little disappointed that I have food left. … We’re going to the streets and hand it all out. We won’t stop until our food is gone.’ …

“Many have welcomed the initiative, but others question the sustainability of its business model. Gordon is quick to brush aside such concerns, pointing to pay-what-you-can initiatives that have been successful in Europe and noting that his soup bar managed to pay for itself.”

More at the Guardian, here.

 

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The Burrito Brigade

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on June 25, 2018| 2 Comments »

Photo: Alan Greenblatt/NPR
Growing up, Liam Foley (left) was in charge of dishes and never cooked. He was still able to help chop the onions, though, at a burrito-making project for the poor in San Francisco.

Here’s another great story about ordinary people stepping up to try to make a dent in some of life’s knottier problems. This initiative is about making a dent in hunger and getting to know a few people experiencing homelessness.

Alan Greenblatt writes at National Public Radio, “Jimmy Ryan’s recipe for burritos is really pretty simple. It calls for 50 pounds of rice, 50 pounds of beans, a couple of cases of canned tomatoes and several hundred tortillas.

“That may sound like a lot, but Ryan is one of the organizers of the Burrito Project in San Francisco, an informal charity that makes and distributes about 500 burritos to the homeless once a month. On May 21, the group celebrated its second anniversary and rolled its 10,000th burrito. …

“The desire to distribute healthy, easily portable burritos is catching on. … A couple of the entities have registered as 501(c)3 charities, but others remain completely informal. Anyone is allowed to use the name as long as they’re providing burritos and not making any money off the service.

” ‘From what I understand, we have one of the only burrito projects that runs four days a week,’ says Rai Doty, a coordinator in Salt Lake City. ‘Four days a week, we feed 200 to 500 people a night.’

“The groups rely on a mix of donated food and sponsorships. In San Francisco, different companies pay the bills each month, helping out with both funding and manpower. …

“The crowd [I saw] was mostly young and white, but several other racial and ethnic groups were represented, with at least one grandmother helping out. For some, this effort represents just one stop along their personal charity journeys, which also include efforts such as working at animal shelters or churches. But for others, this was a quick and painless way to give back. …

“The organizers say they’re trying to make the event fun and welcoming, asking everyone to introduce themselves and providing kombucha and cake to celebrate their anniversary. …

“The soup kitchen that allows the Burrito Project to use its kitchen is located on the edge of the Mission District, which is ground zero for gentrification pressures in San Francisco. …

“The Burrito Project encourages volunteers not just to hand out food, but to stop and interact with individuals who are often neglected or avoided. …

“No one is under the illusion that handing out an occasional burrito is going to solve anyone’s problems.

“Some Burrito Project outposts try to do more than occasionally feed people. During the snowy season in Salt Lake City, the group partners with Warm the Homeless, which distributes blankets, coats and hats. The long-running project in Bakersfield, Calif., has been adopted by high school and church groups who hand out clothes and shoes when there are donations. Their ninth anniversary event on July 8 will provide a forum for representatives from other local groups that provide housing, health and legal assistance.”

More at NPR, here.

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The Left Shark

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 16, 2016| 2 Comments »

 

 

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Several civic-minded design and construction businesses have once again entered the Rhode Island Community Food Bank‘s annual Canstruction contest. The display at the Providence Place mall combines fun with a message about hunger in the state and the need for canned goods.

LLB Architects of Pawtucket and Shawmut Design and Construction of Providence are the geniuses behind the display featuring the Left Shark, an Internet celebrity since one of singer Katy Perry’s backup dancers at the 2015 Super Bowl went rogue.

I remember seeing another Canstruction event last year, at the Boston Society of Architects. It’s easy to see why this sort of work needs to be done by designers and builders: it’s really hard to make cans look like anything but cans. The BSA cans were donated to the Merrimack Valley Food Bank in Lowell.

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Café Fights Hunger

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

A Framingham, Mass., couple who run a restaurant have decided to do their bit to combat hunger in their town.

Bella English has the story at the Boston Globe. “The Foodie Cafe is a 24-seater in a factory-and-warehouse section of Framingham. Workers stop in for coffee and eggs or for a lunch of homemade soups and breads, artisan sandwiches, and cupcakes with killer icing.

“But David and Alicia Blais, who own and run it, feed more than just their paying customers. They also aim to feed all of the city’s hungry. A chalkboard in the cafe proclaims: ‘Thanks to you (our wonderful customers), we have fed over 890 people in need this November. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!’

“About three years ago, the couple opened the Foodie Cafe — they loved its huge kitchen — after selling a Walpole restaurant they had run for several years. …

” ‘There was no sense of food insecurity in Walpole on the scale found in Framingham,’’ says Alicia, 55. “All you have to do is drive around, and you can see the need. …’

“Devout Christians, the couple went to hear a pastor speak about his street ministry and when he mentioned that he always runs out of sandwiches for the hungry, they decided to help. …

“ ‘They’ve been tremendous to us,’ says Jim Bauchman, founder of Framingham Street Ministries. “I can’t thank them enough. I see it as a partnership.” …

“For them, feeding the hungry is a matter of philosophy and faith. ‘I feel that people should have the necessities of life,’ says Alicia. ‘People should be sheltered. People should have food. We have a restaurant. We make food. It’s not rocket science.’ ”

More here.

Photo: Suzanne Kreiter/Globe staff
Inside Alicia Blais assembles sandwiches.

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Food Banks Try to Meet the Need

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »

With increasing numbers of Americans experiencing food insecurity, it seems like an appropriate time of year to be grateful that at least there are many goodhearted people managing food banks and community meals and doing what they can.

If you know of anyone in New England who could use the help just now, or if you want to volunteer or donate, this partial list may be a good starting place.

Rhode Island

http://www.rifoodbank.org
“The Rhode Island Community Food Bank works to end hunger in our state by providing food to people in need. We envision a day when all Rhode Islanders have access to nutritious food and a healthy lifestyle.

Massachusetts

East
http://Gbfb.org
“The Greater Boston Food Bank’s mission is to End Hunger Here. Our objective is to distribute enough food to provide at least one meal a day to those in need.”

West
https://www.foodbankwma.org/
“We are fortunate to live in such a special part of the country, allowing for the growth and harvest of a multitude of fresh fruits and vegetables. As this harvest season comes to an end, we have received more than 266,800 pounds of fresh produce — including potatoes, lettuce, carrots, apples and squash — donated by local farms this year.”

Vermont

http://www.vtfoodbank.org/FindFoodShelf.aspx
“If you are looking for a place to have a Thanksgiving meal or to volunteer to help cook, serve or clean-up, download our list of Thanksgiving meals.”

New Hampshire

http://www.nhfoodbank.org/
“Need Food? We Can Help. If you are in need of assistance, use our search to locate the nearest food pantry or soup kitchen to you. Search by your town or county, or view all of our partner agencies.”

Maine

http://www.foodpantries.org/st/maine
“There are several food pantries and food banks in the Maine. With help from users like you we have compiled a list of some. If you know of a listing that is not included here please submit new food pantries to our database.”

Connecticut

http://www.ctfoodbank.org/
“The mission of Connecticut Food Bank is to provide nutritious food to people in need. We distribute food and other resources to nearly 700 local emergency food assistance programs in six of Connecticut’s eight counties: Fairfield, Litchfield, Middlesex, New Haven, New London and Windham.”

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Baltimore Is Feeding the Needy

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , on April 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »

Back in November, Jamie Smith Hopkins wrote for the Baltimore Sun about a group called Gather Baltimore, which “collects donations of food from farmers markets and schools and delivers them to organizations in the city for distribution to those in need.”

Hopkins says, “Gather Baltimore, the fledging group that organized the rapid harvest, does this work every week — collecting food that would otherwise go to waste and distributing it in city neighborhoods.”

“Arthur Gray Morgan, a teacher and urban farmer who founded Gather Baltimore, is a newly minted fellow with the Open Society Institute-Baltimore. His fellowship mission for the next 18 months: expand Gather Baltimore and make it sustainable. …”Morgan, who tends the Hamilton Crop Circle gardens in Northeast Baltimore, has collected and distributed free food for several years — ever since he saw how much went to waste at farmers’ markets. What couldn’t be sold wasn’t necessarily taken back to the farm. Frequently, it was tossed out.

“That bothered Morgan, who hears a frequent refrain from his students at Hamilton Elementary/Middle: ‘I’m hungry, I’m hungry.’ …

“Now he and his army of volunteers have the work down to a science — harvesting, picking up donations from local stores and stopping off at the downtown farmers’ market to cart off anything farmers want to contribute after the customers leave.”

You can help Gather Baltimore by voting for it at reddit, here.

Photograph of Arthur Gray Morgan: Baltimore Sun

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Growing Food in Waterbury, Connecticut

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , on November 1, 2012| Leave a Comment »

More good news from the Christian Science Monitor‘s Change Agent series.

Cathryn J. Prince reports that Brass City Harvest in Waterbury is expanding its farmers market to a year-round venue for nourishing food.

Just behind the table that is Brass City’s office, Prince writes, “two large pools await the arrival of trout. Outside stand raised-bed gardens. Some are filled with Asian eggplants, others with tomatoes hanging like Christmas ornaments from the vine.

“Nonprofit Brass City Harvest operates the ‘Connecticut Grown’ farmers markets in Waterbury, providing what its executive director, Susan Pronovost, calls ‘real food’ for hungry people. And next month Brass City Harvest will open a year-round farmers market, selling produce and goods produced by about eight Connecticut farms. …

“The new market will be a food hub, Ms. Pronovost says. According to the US Department of Agriculture, one-third of Waterbury is a ‘food desert.’ That means that either at least 500 people, or 33 percent of the population, have a poverty rate of 20 percent or higher and live more than one mile from a supermarket or grocery store.

“ ‘People are hungry. They knock at our door and ask if we have something,’ Pronovost says. …

“Thinking there must be a better way to feed people Pronovost started Brass City Harvest in 2007. Today it’s a seven-day-a-week operation that sponsors two farmers markets. Brass City’s staff includes a nutritionist, nurse, and social worker. It also offers vocational training to homeless men.

“Still, Pronovost thought more could be done to keep the supply of fresh food and produce flowing year round.

“After visiting Halifax, Nova Scotia, and St. John, New Brunswick, this summer, she says the year-round indoor markets in those cities there inspired her.

“ ‘If people to the north can do it, we certainly can,’ she says. …

“Brass City itself sits on top of a brownfield. The soil is filled with lead and other hazardous materials, Pronovost says. The City of Waterbury inherited the lot and had three choices – leave it alone, dig 30 feet down and replace the soil, or pour a concrete cap over the toxic soil. The city chose to cover the area with concrete. Brass Harvest has built its raised bed gardens over the concrete.” More.

Photograph: Cathryn J. Prince
Brass City Harvest operates an urban garden.This month it is adding a year-round farmers market supplied by nearby Connecticut farms, says Susan Pronovost, executive director of Brass City Harvest.

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