There are many ways to look at our food system – from regional to global – and in the wake of the pandemic, we realized how important a local, resilient food system is to the health and well-being of us all.
Ideas Into Action
American University’s efforts to address inequities in the food system arena over the past couple of decades have been led by Professor Stacey Snelling, Chair of the Department of Health Studies at American University.
Says Snelling, “Equity remains forefront in our work as we look to make a difference with health and nutrition groups to improve health outcomes for all. It’s through authentic community engagement that we address the individual needs of the community where people live, work, learn and worship.” She and her team’s initiatives to produce good health outcomes include Faithfully Fit, Healthy Schools Healthy Communities, the Pilgrim Rest Produce Project pilot, and an inaugural convening of the “Cultivating a Resilient and Equitable DC Food System” summit on October 9.
Robin McClave, Director of Healthy Schools Healthy Communities initiative notes, “Our work is focused in Wards 7 and 8, where residents face higher rates of health disparities across many health markers, showing how the food system is not serving all residents in Washington, DC.”
Snelling and her team have consistently found that community-led action achieves the strongest and most sustainable impact, so they developed a novel pilot with financial support from Novo Nordisk, a global healthcare company.
Says Apurva Patel, Novo Nordisk’s Director of US Corporate Sustainability and Social Impact, “Novo Nordisk supports a wide range of interventions that seek to reduce the burden of chronic disease in vulnerable populations through our social impact work around the country. American University’s innovative Produce Project in DC’s Ward 7 and 8 is a smart model with a positive impact on participants’ health. This pilot shows how a positive shift in the DC area food system, focused on three pillars: food production, distribution and consumption can be realized when the community and stakeholders drive the change.”
Connecting the Links of the Food System Chain
The American University team along with Mary Brown, Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church (PRBC) congregant and Health Minister had the idea to bring fresh, local produce to a faith-based men’s group at the church in Ward 7. This concept built on past outreach and health-focused activations with the PRBC congregation and staff, including Health Ministry certification through Wesley Theological Seminary and the Faithfully Fit program funded by DC Health.
Says Mary Brown, “As a congregation, we want to make sure everyone is as healthy as they can be. When we were exploring this new programming for the men’s fellowship, it seemed like a great idea. We know to stay healthy and address diet-related illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure, we might want to eat more vegetables and learn about good choices – you don’t do better until you know better!”
This new three-month intervention consisted of presentations with discussions around health and wellness, monthly blood pressure screenings performed by PRBC Ministry staff, two Veggie Meter screenings (a non-invasive way to assess vegetable intake) and weekly produce distributions. Approximately a quarter of the produce distributions came from a small Maryland farmer, and the balance was aggregated from several regional farmers sourced through FRESHFARM’s network.
Farmer Eugene Yarbrough is a family farmer from Maryland who was tapped to supply some of the vegetables provided during the Pilgrim Rest Produce Project pilot and says, “Knowing there are predictable markets for my produce makes sure I have a sustainable and viable farm business – and allows me, not only as a farmer but as a small business owner to think about areas for expansion.”
The American University approach is comprehensive and collaborative – reaching out not only to engage members of a church congregation, but to farmers and producers near DC through the FRESHFARM Market’s Pop-Up Food Hub (PUFH).
PUFH Manager, Angela Farkas notes the two key missions of their program are “to support small- and mid-sized local farmers in the Mid-Atlantic region, especially Black and Brown farmers, in connecting with wholesale partners to grow their businesses, and also to nourish our community, and especially those who struggle with food security, by providing them with fresh, locally grown produce at wholesale prices.”
FRESHFARM Market’s model prioritizes working with farmers growing within 200 miles of the DC region, those traditionally under-represented, those in their first generation of growing, and women-owned farms.
Says Farkas, “Of the 37 farmers we work with, 24 percent identify as Black and/or Brown and 66 percent of the total 2023 PUFH revenue went to these farms.”
Chase Goldston, the operations manager for the FRESHFARM Market’s PUFH, facilitated packing the bags of produce going to PRBC and heard about the health focus that was a part of the American University pilot. Goldston did some research finding out about carotenoids and how they benefit health, “I found studies showing they promote cell health with anti-inflammatory properties and antioxidants. From that point, we made sure we always included some produce high in carotenoids – from sweet potatoes to carrots to vibrant orange or red sweet peppers.”
Increasing Personal Health
American University’s team engaged DC-native James Tate of Beyond W8 Loss Total Wellness Center, an Integrative Nutrition Health Coach. In 2010 Tate, who says he was a big child, teen and adult, weighed 415 pounds and by January of 2011 he had shed over 200 pounds without surgery or fad diets.
Tate takes a practical approach to spreading his message, “There has to be some sort of mental shift – and it helped the gentlemen to see someone who looked like them – I went from 415 pounds to 205 pounds in one year, doing it by eating a whole food, plant-based diet – all real food. Your story allows you to connect to people. Fruits and vegetables healed me; I can go into communities and talk about how food had the power to heal me and it’s the greatest equalizer and healer to a community.”
Bria Hamlet from the American University team says that even for a three-month pilot, the results are promising. “The Pilgrim Rest Produce Project engaged a total of 57 men from the fellowship group, ranging in age from 25 to 86. Nearly 65 percent of the participants saw a reduction in blood pressure and the Veggie Meter readings regularly saw an uptick, meaning the participants were reaching a higher amount of vegetable consumption as time went forward.”
Terry Proctor, a Deacon at Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church and one of the participants in the pilot stated that it all comes down to trust, “Brother Tate simplified everything and provided more knowledge to make good choices. He lost weight on his own and wasn’t looking for a quick fix. The youth in our community need hope, too.”
Proctor found himself expanding his culinary knowledge, too. “We had this beautiful and colorful produce in one of the produce bags, and I hadn’t seen it before – I did some research and found out it was chard – I went on the internet and followed directions to prepare it with some onions, a little bit of garlic and olive oil – it really didn’t need any salt as it was really flavorful – my wife enjoyed it, too.”
“Working from the ground up – both with growing vegetables and working with the community – provides an opportunity to engage new partners and accelerate the work of our existing ones. It’s on this solid foundation we will grow urban agriculture, expand the distribution of healthy foods, and increase education on healthy eating and disease prevention,” Snelling said.
Next Steps
In October, Snelling and her team at the American University’s Health Schools, Healthy Communities (HSHC) Lab led the DC Resilient Food System Summit, gathering leaders and experts from agriculture, science, business, elected officials, and academia, representing over 50 regionally-based organizations to look at the strengths and challenges inherent in the local food system. The findings of the summit will be published in a report in January, 2025; a review of the draft report with feedback and comments will take place in December of this year.
Once the report is released, the HSHC team will be working with DC food system stakeholders to build a plan for monitoring and evaluating progress toward a more resilient and equitable food system. Diverse voices and perspectives will inform all change efforts, as partnership and collaboration are the critical ingredients for lasting transformation. For further information visit https://www.american.edu/cas/healthyschools/.
Annette Nielsen, a writer and food systems advisor, returned to Capitol Hill from New York where she served as the executive director of the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center.
