Tag Archives: Food Council

Evanston Eats: Food Vote 2013

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I contacted Debbie Hillman, co-founder of the Evanston Food Council, back in January in regards to initiating a practicum. We met one Sunday morning and it was instantly apparent that we both wanted to make a significant impact on the local food community. Although Debbie doesn’t have a formal background in health promotion, she offers a breadth of experience in sustainability, networking, and food policy. Perhaps one of her most important contributions towards public health was in helping to coordinate the development of the Illinois Food, Farms, and Jobs Act in 2007, an effort to boost Illinois-based food and farm economy. Since then she has been involved in a wide assortment of food projects and initiatives in Illinois and in the Chicago area.

Debbie is just like any other community member, except she saw that there was a problem and she decided to take action. I bring up Debbie – a person who started her journey from absolutely nothing – because she has a very interesting story to tell and because she is the extent of my practicum experience.

Debbie and I started this year with some basic ideas and a few scattered concepts; our basic premise has always been to promote a change in the food system within the Evanston, IL community. Our initial focus was to create a community needs assessment, but the scope of our work has drastically evolved into something incredible. As a result, the Evanston Food Council created Evanston Eats: Food Vote 2013.

Food Vote 2013 is a participatory budgeting initiative to get the community engaged in their food system. It would first be appropriate to generate a good understanding of participatory budgeting before proceeding, since it’s a concept that not many people are familiar with. At its very basic, the idea is for a community to decide how they are going to allocate their resources through a vote.

Here’s how participatory budgeting would work for Food Vote 2013:
Step 1 – we would first generate a pool of funds through different crowdfunding and fundraiser opportunities.
Step 2 – different food-related organizations, co-ops, projects, etc… would submit proposals on how they would use those funds if they obtained them. For instance, maybe someone wants to enhance a community garden, or maybe a soup kitchen could use new equipment, or maybe someone wants to create a composting program.
Step 3 – each group that submits a proposal would pitch their idea at a community event and the community would then vote and decide which would be the top projects they want to get funded.
Step 4 – the funds are dispersed accordingly and the process is repeated annually.

This is a truly democratic process that helps to educate community members and to get people involved in their community.

In this fashion, the scope of our work as changed since Debbie and I first met in January. Right now we are continuing on with Food Vote 2013, but we are going to have to constantly reassess everything that we’re doing to see if this idea is still viable. Keep in mind, very few communities have utilized participatory budgeting and no one has applied this concept to food in the United States. This has the potential to be something very extraordinary and it will certainly help serve as a learning experience in spite of its success.

As of result of my practicum experience, I’m seeing firsthand how grassroots organizations work – networking, community outreach, and developing relationships are certainly essential to success. I wanted to take this opportunity to see how grassroots organizations work as part of my practicum experience and it’s been quite interesting so far.

Dan Jaris

P.S. Please check out our website for more information: http://www.evanstoneats.net/

Photo taken from our first public informational meeting.

Food & Fitness Coalition practicum status update

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Hi there,

I’ve had an eventful couple of weeks in my practicum!

On July 8th I spent the entire day at the Benton-Franklin County Health District with a very full agenda:

  • My day started with a meeting with the Executive Director of the Benton-Franklin Health Alliance, Carol Moser. Carol is my practicum supervisor and asked me to assist her in coming up with a concept for a new Health Alliance website.  The Health Alliance is the umbrella under which the Food & Fitness Coalition falls.  Also under the Alliance are the Healthcare Access Team, Mental Health, Oral Health, Patient Safety, Chronic Pain, and Domestic Violence-Coordinated Community Response Team.  As the Executive Director, Carol wants a modern and cohesive look to tie these various committees together.  This is the current Food & Fitness Coalition website: http://www.bfcha.org/food_fitness.htm.  I was inspired by the look of the Nourish Life website, which is fresh, modern, and interactive: http://www.nourishlife.org/.  Carol liked the idea of using the Alliance webpages to post videos and learning tools.  She is working on the redesign of this website with the IT department as one of her main priorities.
  • My next activity was to hold the monthly Food & Fitness Coalition meeting.  I sent out the agenda earlier in the week.  My goals for the meeting were to do a brief roundtable update, discuss planning for our Food Day event, plan the July newsletter, and revisit the Coalition mission, vision, and motto.  We had a lively discussion on Food Day planning, which ended up taking up any time left for discussing our mission, vision, and motto.  During our Food Day discussion, we narrowed down our focus for the event.  Dr. Matt Smith is one of the active physician members on the Coalition, and he suggested that we should focus on the low-income population of our community, as income is the greatest predictor of obesity. We explored ideas and decided that we would ask one of the local Food Banks for a tour of the facility in place of our August meeting.  During that tour, we will consider options for holding a Food Day event to promote the Food Bank and aid the people who rely on the services provided.  Since that time, we have talked with 3 of the local Food Banks and have coordinated the tour to take place on August 19th at one of them.
  • After the meeting, I was thrown a bit of a curveball!  I sent my June newsletter out to a wide range of community members, including the local newspaper and television news media. In the newsletter, I posted the time, date, location, and agenda for the July meeting.  A reporter from the local NBC affiliate came to the Food & Fitness meeting to observe and record the meeting, and asked if she could interview me after the meeting.  I was really surprised and pretty nervous!  But I agreed to do the interview because I felt that the Coalition is doing really great work on issues that need to be addressed.  My only real reason to be apprehensive was that I had not spent time preparing cohesive statements and I didn’t know exactly what the reporter would ask me.  In the end, the interview was not terribly difficult, and I did a pretty good job answering the questions that the reporter asked without too much hemming and hawing!  🙂  I would have liked to have had more time to prepare, but it seems that life doesn’t often allow for dress-rehearsals.  Later that evening, I watched my interview on TV and was relieved that I came across professionally, but of course, I spent the whole weekend thinking of things I wish I would have said!
  • My last activity for the day was to interview the Health Officer of the Benton Franklin Health District, Dr. Larry Jecha.  Dr. Jecha has worked in public health for decades and has a wealth of knowledge about the history of the health district and it’s strategies for meeting the needs of the public.  I wanted to understand more about how the system works and where the Food & Fitness Coalition falls within the larger scope of public health.  It was a very interesting conversation… I learned a lot more than I had expected.  I am in the process of writing a summary of of that conversation to post in my August Food & Fitness Newsletter.  When I have it completed, I will post it on this blog as well.

A week later, I completed the July Food & Fitness Newsletter.  It is attached below.  I have some standard sections that I’d like to fill each month, but so far I have needed to be flexible with the type of content that is available and what will fit in a reasonably sized newsletter.  I think it’s turning out to be a very nice publication and I’ve recieved some really nice feedback from the recipients, my practicum supervisor, and the former Chair.

On July 18th I attended a Community Council Meeting for the first time.  The Community Council meetings happen every other month.  From my understanding, these meetings provide an opportunity for each of the committees who report to the Community Health Alliance to interface and to learn about the main objectives of the Alliance staff.  The Alliance is coordinating a community health assessment of our counties.  The planning for the assessment started in March 2011 and the evaluation of the assessment will complete in May 2013.  The Assessment Coordinator described the timeline and asked for volunteers to assist in phases of the assessment.  I am considering which time periods will be optimal for me to participate based on where my skills will be best used and when my schedule will allow for additional activities.  I am starting to think about my MPH-N project and will consider participating in the assessment as one option.  During the Community Council meeting we also heard a presentation from the local coordinator of the Greater Columbia 2-1-1.  The 2-1-1 is a network funded by the United Way that provides a one stop shop for all kinds of social services.  It’s a searchable online database and a hotline.  Services must be updated by participating agencies, but the range of agencies included is really impressive.  It’s a great way for people who are new to social services to figure out what is available to them in their local area.  The 2-1-1 coordinator stressed that because of the economic recession, there are many folks who need social services, but don’t know how to access them or even what is out there.  She also said that these people are more likely to feel shame or stigma, since they aren’t used to asking for help.  The 2-1-1 offers a venue for identifying services without having to drive all over town or go into various offices.  This is helpful also for people who are disabled or elderly.

To sum this all up, I’ve been busy and learning a LOT!  I’ve really been enjoying getting to know all the people who do amazing work in this community.  I still have a lot to do before the practicum ends, but so far so good!  As a reminder, my July newsletter is posted here.07.11 newsletter

Amanda’s Practicum in San Antonio – Update 1

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Hello!

I am in my 7th semester of the MPHN program at UMass Amherst. This semester I am working on my practicum at the Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW) grant office in San Antonio, TX which falls under the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District (Metro Health). I would like to highlight a few of the areas I am currently involved in:

San Antonio Food Policy Council (SAFPC)

Prior to the semester beginning, I was able to begin attending the steering committee meetings for the formation of the SAFPC. (Forming a food policy council is one of CPPW’s grant deliverables.) I was able to observe this formation process, the decisions regarding categories of membership, and the selection process that culminated this coalition building effort. Since beginning my practicum with CPPW, I have been involved with coordination efforts for the SAFPC, which has its official launch date October 27, 2010.

I have long been interested in the area of food insecurity and the food system, so it has been amazing to see some of the independent projects I’ve been working on begin to come together. Since mid-summer I have been working with a food systems expert to apply for a USDA Healthy Communities grant to fund a needs assessment of San Antonio. The state demographer took interest in our grant application and took the lead on it. A key partner in this grant application is the SAFPC, so I have been able to participate in not only writing the grant narrative, but also in the strategic planning process for how the SAFPC will use the assessment data once it becomes available.

Communities Putting Prevention to Work (CPPW)

The San Antonio CPPW grant has a nutrition component and a physical activity component. My activity with the nutrition portion has enabled me to observe the leadership team meetings where grant partners report their efforts toward achieving grant deliverables. In addition to grant partners, specific committees, such as the nutrition sub-committee, report their efforts as well. As part of the nutrition sub-committee’s efforts, I am working to coordinate with three national organizations, assigned to our CPPW office by the CDC, to provide technical assistance to help us better achieve our grant deliverables in the area of obesity prevention.

¡Por Vida!

¡Por Vida! is an initiative of the Healthy Restaurant Coalition to identify menu items of participating restaurants that meet ¡Por Vida! nutrition criteria. This coalition includes Metro Health, the San Antonio Restaurant Association, and the San Antonio Dietetic Association. I am thrilled to participate in this program – analyzing restaurants’ recipes, meeting with restaurateurs, and providing inservices. ¡Por Vida! launches October 13, 2010 with seven restaurants. Many more restaurants around town eagerly await their chance to display the ¡Por Vida! logo on their menus.

I will try to obtain and post pictures or press links from the ¡Por Vida! launch later this week.