Categories:
The Cedar Tree Foundation has awarded The Food Project a three-year $270,000 grant in support of its national work. Specifically, the Cedar Tree grant will fund the start-up of TFP’s Real Food Challenge (RFC). The RFC engages college students across the country to encourage the food services in their colleges and universities to source locally-raised products. By doing so, the RFC will harness the purchasing power of large educational institutions to be agents for market-based change.
The Cedar Tree Foundation’s grant making focuses on sustainable agriculture, environmental education and environmental health–particularly for groups that demonstrate strong elements of environmental justice and conservation. This award is especially meaningful to The Food Project as it strengthens our ability to encourage and support others to eat local.
Categories:
You can now register for our 2008 farm share and box share CSA offerings, and if you do so before December 1st you’ll get an early-bird discount of $50 off the farm share and $25 off the box share.
Click the links above for applications and more information. If you’re not sure what a CSA is, or want to learn more about Community Supported Agriculture, click here.
Categories:
Susan MacDougall is the Interim Executive Director of The Food Project.
Dear Friend:
I’ve been thinking over the last few days how best to organize my thoughts to update our most cherished stakeholders; I came up with four letters: TION.
TransiTION: Pat Gray has graduated after 16 years and is sticking her toes into the waters of endless opportunities and I can only guess who will next be blessed with her vision, commitment and passion. We all miss her and I personally am grateful she has made herself available to share advice whenever asked. I was hired two years ago to support Pat as Managing Director. We worked closely together to develop a five-year plan in which we streamlined organizational structure. Months later when Pat tapped me to be Interim Executive Director, I was honored to serve. Together, with Pat’s senior team intact, we have made great strides riding the wave of eat local trends and strategically deciding among the myriad of opportunities.
Meanwhile, Gilbert Tweed Associates continues to assist our Search Committee to find a leader who can take the organization to its next level of excellence. I am happy to share with you my thoughts about this process at any time. Please call (781-259-8621 X34).
ReflecTION: As we grow, we’ve been learning. Over the last year, the senior team has reflected on the range of programs we offer and internal operations. In true Food Project fashion, the process has been transparent and participatory. Some changes included changing the fiscal year, reorganizing TFP into four major workgroups, involving program staff in fundraising activities, tightening relations with our North Shore replication site, committing to longitudinal research, rekindling our diversity and hiring policies and practices, building infrastructure for growth of core youth programs, and reevaluating our national work. Programs, operations and staff morale are better than ever.
SituaTION: A red apple with an ‘Eat Local’ label adorned the cover of the March 12, 2007 issue of TIME magazine. “Eat local” articles are popping up everywhere–even Reader’s Digest and United Airlines’ magazine. Mainstream media has finally caught on! For sixteen years The Food Project has been at the forefront of this movement – by employing youth to grow and distribute local produce and mentoring 150 national organizations and countless individuals to do the same. Childhood obesity, urban health issues, and concerns over rising youth violence in Boston have also put The Food Project’s work in the spotlight.
EvaluaTION: Since 2000, youth participants have completed short-term outcome evaluations. This year, we conducted our first long-term evaluation with the assistance of Shirley Brice Heath, at Brown University, and Brigham Nahas Research Associates. Our goal was to contact 812 alumni and to establish an extensive alumni network and program. Interviews with our alumni are revealing lasting program impacts which include:
1) life and employment skills
2) leadership and public speaking skills
3) increased sensitivity to, and ability to work with, diverse populations
4) improved eating habits
CommunicaTION: The Food Project has a compelling story to tell. Our vision is personal and social change through sustainable agriculture. But what does that really mean? Over the last year, Greenough Communications has helped us reshape our message for greater understanding and impact – critical components in achieving our ambitious five-year goals. We are implementing their recommendations that hopefully will make a noticeable difference.
ExpectaTION: To grow our youth programs we need land. We are working closely with the City of Boston to secure additional acreage in our Roxbury neighborhood with hopes of having land transferred to us this year and fifty additional youth employed on our land next year.
InvitaTION: I remain committed to doing whatever I can to ensure the program’s success. And nothing, other than my family, has mattered so much to me. The greatest thing you can do at this time is to continue to support The Food Project. And please stay in touch so we can keep you connected in a manner most meaningful to you and your family.
Very Best,
Susan MacDougall
Interim Executive Director
Categories:
Duwan is a member of the The Food Project’s academic year youth program.
Before I came to The Food Project I was a very close-minded, careless youth. I never thought about where my food came from, what I should and should not eat, and I only took this job because I had nothing better to do. If I never took this job I would be that same hardheaded teen. After I was enrolled in this program I started to think more about others, what I eat, and how my actions affect my environment. For example, when I got the opportunity to work at the Farmer’s Market and a Hunger Relief Organization I really started to change the way I think and behave. After seeing how little these people have and after discovering that what most say about the homeless is not true, I started to appreciate what I have more. Plus, I was able to help prepare and serve the food at the shelter, so I felt like I was really helping to make a difference in the lives of some of the people there.
Also, by working at the Farmer’s Market I got to have all of these exciting conversations with people that I have never met before, I had the opportunity to work with new vegetables and produce that I have never seen, and I was also able to take a small percent of the produce home and cook it. In addition, my experience at The Food Project has been beneficial and great so far, and my experience ties into The Food Project Vision, which is “to create personal and social change through sustainable agriculture.”
Categories:
Every year The Food Project runs a Summer and Winter Institute, which are multi-day experiences that are designed to expose participants to the nuts and bolts of how we do our work.
We’ve just posted the registration form for our 2008 Winter Institute, which will be held February 7-9, 2008, at our sites in the Boston metro area. For more information, and to download the form, please see the Institute page on our website.
Categories:
Earlier this year TFP sent an electronic survey to 150 organizations that work with youth to build local food systems in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. We wanted to see who was out there, what they were doing, what motivated them, what were their biggest strengths and challenges, and what type of impact they were having both individually and collectively. In short, we wanted to find out what the field looked like and how much it has grown in the 17 years since Ward Cheney came up with the idea to bring urban and suburban youth together on a piece of land to grow food for hungry people.
Forty organizations responded to our inquiry. From the data they supplied, we have created a report that is freely available entitled State of the Field: Youth in Sustainable Food Systems 2007 (PDF).
Findings show that organizations are largely focused on urban areas, their strengths lie in their programs, and their biggest challenges lie in management, strategic planning and staff retention. The Food Project has been an inspiration to many of them over the years, and connections with us and other organizations within the field continue to be important. As individual organizations each is a positive force of change in their communities. Across the field the impact is even more impressive. If the trends observed in this survey sample are applied to the 150 organizations in the field of youth in sustainable food systems in North America that were identified for this study, we would expect to see the following impact on youth and the food system:
• Over 380,000 people interacting with youth in sustainable agriculture organizations
• 230,000 individuals experiencing garden and farm work, most of it in urban areas
• 38,000 participants in nutrition education programs
• 14,500 youth and young adults working with sustainable food systems
• 258,000 customers and hunger relief clients receiving produce
• 300 acres in production
• 1,150 employees
• $21.7 million in program budgets
We hope that this report can be used by used by organizations and funders alike to strengthen connections within the field, set priorities, gain support for non-programmatic components and gain legitimacy for a field that until now has been largely unrecognized. There is a lot of great work happening out there!
Categories:
As we descend into fall and winter here in the Boston area, here’s a reflection from the summer to keep us warm.
It’s August and it’s time to harvest the melons. Harvesting melons is one of my favorite things to do on the farm, as it most resembles football. To harvest melons, we walk into the row of melons, close to each other at first as the leader pulls the ripe melons from the vines and hands them down the line. At first, it’s just a a handoff, a gentle pass down the line of six young people. As we move further into the row, the gentle pass becomes a toss and eventually a throw, carefully avoiding dropping the sweet, warm fruit. Because a drop means one less melon for the market or the CSA.
It also means snack time. To taste an Athena cantaloupe still warm from the sun, is an amazing rite of summer here at The Food Project. Each of us waits for our favorite produce to be ready to be eaten. For me it’s cantaloupe and watermelon. When they’re ready, I know summer is really here.
Categories:
A few days ago there was an article in Boston Globe about local eating in Roxbury that mentions The Food Project. Well worth the short read!
Pitchfork School Garden Design came to visit our farms in Lincoln and Dorchester and wrote a couple blogs about their experiences, complete with pictures. You can find them here and here.
Finally, Joe over at Food in Boston has a writeup of last weeks local food forum here in Boston.
