Food justice is “the right of communities everywhere to produce, process, distribute, access, and eat good food regardless of race, class, gender, ethnicity, citizenship, ability, religion, or community.” This is not the reality in San Jose where thousands of residents suffer from food insecurity; they lack access to the food they need to lead an active, healthy life. The likelihood that a family may experience food insecurity is exacerbated by particular demographics: “low-income households, those with children headed by a single woman, and those headed by people identifying as Black and/or Hispanic” are more likely to experience food insecurity. Even in “wealthy” or “developed” neighborhoods, food insecurity is still prevalent. In Silicon Valley, where technology companies boast profits in the billions, “demand for free groceries has quadrupled” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Environmental Justice and Common Good Initiative’s food justice program lead, Professor Chris Bacon (Environmenmental Studies and Science), is working collaboratively with Sacred Heart Community Services (SHCS) and to facilitate food justice and combat food insecurity. SHCS is the county’s lead provider of essential services, including emergency food assistance. And in 2021, SHCS served food to more than 25,000 people. SHCS also encompasses the La Mesa Verde Urban Gardening Program (LMV) which was founded in 2009 and currently serves nearly 200 San Jose residents. LMV provides community members with the tools and community resources they need to establish and grow their own organic gardens each year. Together, these entities will embark on an 18-month collaborative project funded by a $50,000 CalEPA Environmental Justice Small Grants Award. SHCS is the lead agency for this grant, and SCU will receive a $15,000 subaward. This project will facilitate food justice in the South Bay by employing research-based agroecology techniques to reduce food waste, produce compost, and improve the sustainability of emergency food assistance programs. Chris Bacon and a team of student researchers, including Ava Gleicher, Brooke Rose, and others, will aid in developing and implementing a community-based food justice approach. Together they will craft materials for five community-oriented educational workshops, facilitate leadership development opportunities for backyard gardeners and pantry volunteers, and create a replicable resource guide available to food pantries and urban gardeners so that they may use and adapt this food justice approach. This project will culminate in a Composting Distribution Day where key policy stakeholders, City Council Officials, and community members will be invited to celebrate the work accomplished and be encouraged to support county-wide efforts to build a nourishing, equitable, environmentally-sound, and community-oriented food system. This initiative will engage members of Bacon’s research assistant team and students from his ESS Capstone section.
Click here to learn more about the work ACRAF has done with SHCS and LMV.