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The Growing Youth Project began in the fall
of 2005 as a youth-led community food assessment, aimed at
providing youth in the community with valuable employment,
promoting an understanding and dialogue around issues residents
face with respect to food, health, and nutrition, and developing
a vision and action strategy for addressing food justice issues
in the community. This assessment set the stage for the integration
of a wide range of food, health, and farming activities at
the Alameda Point Collaborative.
The program continues to provide teenage youth with meaningful
part time employment and also currently employs an adult resident
through the APC On-the-Job-Training Program. Thanks to funding
provided by The California Endowment, The United Way, HEDCO
Foundation and the USDA, many of the recommended strategies
for improving food security that came out of the original
assessment are becoming realities at APC. For example, growing
grounds for fruits and vegetables have been expanded in the
community garden such that the project has implemented a free
weekly produce delivery service to residents and also contributes
food to APC events. There are also quarterly events held in
the garden and assistance is available for residents who are
interested in growing their own food.
In the coming months the GYP will be establishing an on site
farm with the potential for serving a larger number of residents
and which will incorporate a wider variety of fruits and vegetables
as well as chickens and bees. Regular cooking classes are
held for children and their families, and there are monthly
Family Health Nights that aim to provide information on nutrition
and health concerns for residents, as well as open up dialogue
in the community around these topics. Project staff also participate
in education and advocacy around food justice through peer
to peer education, presentations to other supportive housing
projects, and attendance at city development and school wellness
meetings.
Upcoming projects for GYP include the construction of a community
kitchen to continue our nutrition and cooking classes, provide
a frozen meals program, and to explore the creation of value-added
products from garden produce; implementing a community shuttle
to help residents travel to healthier stores and local farmers
markets; and designing a marketing and distribution plan for
the produce from the new farm.
The product of their research to date is available
below. Please be aware that these are both large files.
Summary
of Findings and Strategies for Improving Food Security
Full Report:
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