The proposed collaborative project between Sacred Heart Community Service’s (SHCS) Food Pantry, La Mesa Verde (LMV) urban gardening program, and Santa Clara University’s (SCU) Environmental Justice and Common Good Initiative engages a community-based food justice approach to reducing food waste and improving sustainability of emergency food assistance. Using community-oriented education workshops and participatory leadership development, this project will mobilize 15 SHCS Food Pantry volunteers and 14 LMV community leaders to: (1) Activate and educate 5,000 community members to better understand local environmental justice issues; (2) Co-develop a food justice approach to food waste reduction with Food Pantry volunteers and LMV leaders; (3) Implement a community-led worm-bin composting project; (4) Monitor, manage, and produce compost available to community members; and (5) Create a replicable resource guide accessible to approximately 50 food pantries and local urban gardeners. 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.
Goals:
- Increase 140 LMV gardener’s and 25 Food Pantry staff and volunteer’s understanding of food justice, food insecurity, and food waste, while simultaneously offering opportunities to change through learning and to adopt new practices to reduce food waste, increase food self-sufficiency, and build community as members of SHCS.
- Enhance community understanding of the larger food system and reduce the Pantry’s food waste through a community-driven worm-bin composting infrastructure, that will be monitored, managed, and tracked by a team of 39 (pantry volunteers, staff, and LMV community leaders).
- Inspire a city, country, and state-wide food justice approach to emergency food assistance by creating a resource guide that includes education materials explaining what a food justice approach to food waste reduction looks like for pantries and home gardeners and by inviting key stakeholders, community members, local elected officials, and at least seven other food pantries to our Composing Distribution Day.
Current Status:
The California Environmental Protection Agency’s Environmental Justice Small Grants Program has funded this project see the press release here.
Team:
Faculty: Chris Bacon (PI),
Current Students: Isabelle Solorzano
Past doctoral researcher: Christopher McNeil
Past Students: Ava Gleicher, Brooke Rose, and Emma McCurry
Collaborators: Fernando Fernandez Leiva, Roberto Gil, Michael Diaz