Fresh food initiatives feed, teach communities of color By CHEYANNE MUMPHREY and ANITA SNOW Associated Press PHOENIX (AP) — Bruce Babcock only has to walk across the street from his house in a residential neighborhood to get to the 10-acre patch (40,500 square meters) of farmland where he labors to help feed his community. As a community garden coordinator, Babcock works with volunteer growers and food enthusiasts to provide enough freshly grown produce every week for hundreds of low-income Phoenix residents without access to much nutritional food. The Spaces of Opportunity neighborhood food system is among several initiatives launched in Phoenix in recent years, following other U.S. communities like Oakland, California; Detroit and Chicago where urban gardens aim to improve food options in racially and ethnically diverse neighborhoods. The efforts have grown increasingly important with hunger across America on the rise amid the coronavirus pandemic. For example, more than 5 million people in Arizona filed unemployment claims this year and many worry where their next meal will come from.
The Arizona Department of Economic Security said as of October more than 900,000 people had applied for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps. Spaces of Opportunity works with the Roosevelt School District, the Orchard Community Learning Center, Unlimited Potential, the Tiger Foundation and the Desert Botanical Garden to produce and improve access to healthy food through farmers markets and distribution programs. It is located in south Phoenix, a predominantly Latino and Black community that public health officials call “food deserts” because of limited access to fresh produce and other healthy options. A map by the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows such food deserts are widespread throughout Arizona and other parts of the Southwest. A lack of fresh food can cause people to depend on fast food and other items that can make them vulnerable to diet-linked health problems such as diabetes, high blood pressure and obesity. Babcock began volunteering with the garden in 2015, after he experimented with an aquaponics project in his backyard. He began paying for a quarter-acre plot of his own shortly after that.
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6 | 2021 Ag Journal - Winter
Babcock said growers start out paying $5 a month for a quarter-acre and can later expand to a full acre plot. More than 60 gardeners now work there and as many as 200 have worked under Babcock since 2015. “We really slowed down over the summer and I was worried it wasn’t going to pick back up because of COVID-19,” Babcock said. But people returned in the fall when the triple-digit temperatures dropped and he opened up more land for gardeners. INTEREST IN NUTRITION Community interest in nutrition and food education has sparked some of the growth, said John Wann-Angeles, director of the Orchard Community Learning Center. Wann-Angeles, a former principal in the Roosevelt School District, said part of his interest comes from his earlier experiences working with children, hoping to keep educating young people to build a better future for their community. Wann-Angeles gathered one early fall morning with volunteers at a Roosevelt district elementary school, wrapping vegetarian burritos for the meals they deliver each Thursday to up to 175 people with modest resources. Bags stuffed with seasonal fruits and vegetables
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