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Food security organizations

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Crow

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Moderators please move/delete this if not appropriate.

I'd like to start a sustainable/organic food truck to give people in impoverished and rural areas access to good food. My idea initially was to just have a free to low cost produce truck but after some research I'm thinking maybe meal kits like blue apron with ingredients and recipes. And also in one or two places have an organic community garden.

I'm just in the initial stages. Not sure I want it to be non-profit because I'd like to be able to be partisan during election cycles. So I'm not exactly sure of the org structure even. And gotta come up with a cool name.

But I wanted to check to see if anyone knows of a similar program or if you've used a similar program and what you liked and didn't.

Hope this makes sense. Thanks!
 
@CrowFeather I am curious why you think people in rural areas don't have access to good food? I grew up in a rural area and the members of our community had ample access to good food, heck we were the ones growing the food for the rest of the world.
 
Confused about how you'd generate funds... Organic food isn't cheap. Meal kits aren't cheap. How would impoverished people be able to afford such food? Or what is your source of funds as to be able to provide organic food at an affordable price?
 
@FauxLiz I worked in rural farm country for years. Small communities with high unemployment and no access to transportation end up buying food at the convenience stores. The nearest Dollar General could be more than five miles away. The nearest grocery store a days walk roundtrip. I agree that the areas I lived in were privileged. Private cars, gardens & farms, etc. In my state the majority of farm land has been taken over by large corps and outsource work. They have teams that go state to state during harvest. Most of our manufacturing has been sent overseas or simply is gone. There are plenty of resources here in the large urban areas but the impoverished counties with very little money already struggle.

@bobz there are several services set up here in the big city of my state. It's amazing how service oriented organic and community farms\gardens are here and they donate a large percentage of their production to social organizations. As far as funding, corporate sponsorship, grants, a for-profit side of the service eventually (based on a local, highly successful model), and food stamps & govt subsidies if they still exist. Mainly corporate sponsorship and grants. Plenty of money out there for food security. Plus I can fund the first two years on my own. And the boxes/food would be at nearly no cost for the participants. That's the whole purpose.

Hope this all makes sense.
 
I grew up in a rural area and the members of our community had ample access to good food
East coast rural or West coast Rural. I get annoyed when people on the east coast call a place rural. Try 3 hour drive in between gas stations!

I grew up where there was no grocery store or any store for that matter within biking distance. Elementary school k-8th 52 students. from an area the Sq footage of Rhode Island. No free breakfast programs or anything like that.The highschool was 45 minutes away at the time. They rebuilt it closer after I was an adult. Nearest neighbor? Not within walking distance. Car doesn't start, you might as well be dead. So yeah, I went hungry A LOT.

Sorry if this isn't your situation but i used to fight with my husband about this because he only knew east coast and midwest rural until we drove through eastern Oregon together.

Living in an apartment I am garden deprived and I LOVE to garden. My balcony garden doesn't quite cut it. I would love to be apart of something like this.
 
You mentioned the Dollar General above, @CrowFeather . We have one close to us and I remembered they have a frozen food section.

I was wanting frozen peas for a recipe one day and was out, and didn't want to drive the 10 miles to the grocery, so I popped in there thinking peas is a pretty popular veggie and they'd surely have some.

Their frozen foods selection is totally void of any fruits or veggies, unless they're already prepared as a pie, a pot pie, a cheesy bake with meat of some sort, in ice cream, or on a pizza.

Everything that decreased the quality of my life, from the inside out, pretty much. I asked if they were sold out and was advised they don't ever stock it. Stuff like that bugs me and saddens me.
 
That's exactly the issue. And even if you can find a nearby grocery, the quality of the meats & produce is questionable. Never organic options. And weirdly the prices are inflated. Read an article over a decade ago about the differences in pricing between socioeconomic neighborhoods. The stuff that's cheaper? Alcohol and cigarettes. So companies are actually creating the stereotype in a way. Also billboards content (report was on urban areas) was significantly different. Crazy stuff to deny access basically.
 
I read a book quite a while back called "Let Them Eat Junk: How Capitalism Creates Hunger and Obesity". Made me furious and sick, all at the same time. Once I made the drastic changes to my own diet and saw the dramatic overall health improvements of eliminating that stuff, I was even more furious and saddened.

Shared from goodreads.com regarding the book:

"Respected economist Robert Albritton argues that the capitalist system, far from delivering on the promise of cheap, nutritious food for all, has created a world where 25% of the world population are over-fed and 25% are hungry.

This malnourishment of 50% of the world's population is explained systematically, a refreshing change from accounts that focus on cultural factors and individual greed.

Albritton details the economic relations and connections that have put us in a situation of simultaneous oversupply and undersupply of food.

This explosive book provides yet more evidence that the human cost of capitalism is much bigger than those in power will admit."


I know a lot of folks have a hard time wrapping their heads around it based on what is taught, especially in the higher institutions of learning and such, I know I did, and still do at times, but it's hard to deny that it appears to all be by design, at least from the way I've grown to see things. Each person's perception is their own reality, though, so we know how that goes.
 
I'm adding this to my reading list. I had a similar experience when I changed my diet. And also seeing the change of quality of health care from when I had basically nothing to now when I'm an upwardly mobile upper-mid-level professional has been startling. Food is the core of our health and not having affordable access perpetuates generational issues on all levels.
 
I'd like to start a sustainable/organic food truck to give people in impoverished and rural areas access to good food.

Why provide food directly? We seem to have forgotten how to grow/raise our own food. Most rural poor have what is needed to grow their own food; space. The problem is we've been conditioned to accept that food comes in packages from stores.

When I worked as a humanitarian aid worker I noticed that some of the most effective interventions were the simplest and most local. Rather than shipping in food we looked at how to make local communities self sufficient. Giving a cow to a single mother meant she had milk for her kids and could sell/trade excess milk. Giving Muscovy ducks to a small school meant the kids had fresh eggs every day. The ducks ate scraps from the kids' lunch and the weeds/seeds the kids collected on the way to school.
Teaching families how to grow on poor soil meant fresh free veggies.

Don't give away the sustainable/organic food. Give away the knowledge of how to sustainably grow organic food.
 
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