Cooking up Access to Healthy Food
As you turn through the pages of a magazine celebrating Northeast Florida’s food culture, it may be hard to imagine that, for more than 260,000 of our neighbors, access to that bounty of delicious local foods is a challenge. For those experiencing food insecurity, mealtime can be a source of stress and sacrifice. It can happen to anyone, for many different reasons: lack of affordable housing or financial resources, low-wage jobs, health issues or racism and discrimination. Thankfully, there are local organizations and individuals working to bring healing through food sovereignty, and finding solutions in places you might not expect.
When middle school students walk into cooking classes offered at Woodlawn Terrace Apartments in St. Augustine, their tasks may be chopping vegetables for a hearty soup or cracking eggs for French toast. However, they leave with skills and confidence that translate into future job opportunities and meals to feed their families. The weekly classes are part of Epic-Cure’s Sustain U program and are led by volunteer seniors and local chefs.
"Our educational programming is just one of the things we do to reduce food insecurity," says Sunny Mulford, founder of Epic-Cure. Each month, the organization rescues over half a million pounds of food from grocery stores, farms and distributors, then redistributes that food to thousands of families in the region. Good food that would otherwise end up in a landfill goes onto pantry shelves, offering a dignified cost-free shopping experience for those in need. The organization has formed strong community partnerships and relies on dedicated volunteers to make this effort successful.
One of those partners is the region’s largest food bank, Feeding Northeast Florida. While Feeding Northeast Florida distributes millions of pounds of food each year, their effort to improve food access goes beyond food distribution by working side-by-side with food producers and advocates in the communities they serve. Laureen Husband, Vice President of Public Policy and Community Engagement, sees solutions in efforts to reactivate neighborhood markets, teach regenerative agriculture, provide nutrition education and bring farmers’ and mobile markets into neighborhoods that lack access. Increasing food security doesn’t happen in a silo, so the organization focuses on collaborative projects that shorten the line at the food bank and build sustainable food systems for the future.
Building sustainable food systems also means shortening the distance people have to go to find fresh, affordable foods. In a city like Jacksonville, few people live near where their food is grown, but that is changing through programs like the Black Church Food Security Network (BCFSN). BCFSN connects Black churches in neighborhoods across Jacksonville to Black farmers and provides resources to start growing food right outside the church doors. The effort is just getting started locally, but just last November, they harvested over 700 pounds of purple sweet potatoes.
On Moncrief Road in Northwest Jacksonville, Eartha’s Farm and Market has launched a weekly farmers’ market, selling fresh produce right from the 10-acre farm. The market accepts SNAP/ EBT and offers Feeding Florida’s Fresh Access Bucks (FAB) program, which matches every dollar spent in SNAP with an additional dollar in FAB. Shoppers can use FAB to get free fruits and vegetables, stretching their food dollars in a community that doesn’t currently have a single grocery store. The Riverside Arts Market, Orange Park Farmers’ Market, St. Augustine Amphitheatre Farmers’ Market and Beaches Green Market also participate in the FAB program across Northeast Florida.
Additionally, a broad new program addressing health and well-being improvements has been introduced to Northeast Florida. The Blue Zones Project, founded in 2004, is based on longevity research that identifies what key factors make a place a “Blue Zone,” where significantly higher rates of people reach the age of 100 and are living better for longer in life. When representatives of the Blue Zones Project came to Jacksonville in 2019 with the vision to make the city a healthier, happier and more vibrant place to live, they saw that many organizations and individuals were already contributing to that work. Creating a unified voice became a key objective for Blue Zones Project Jacksonville.
By pulling in existing partners and community members, Blue Zones Public Policy Lead Marlo Zarka and her team were able to lay out a blueprint for improving community wellbeing, including food access and nutrition security. “Food is incredibly personal. It’s informed by our backgrounds and life stories. And we want to make the healthy choice, the easy choice,” says Zarka. Blue Zones recently recognized 1 Foxy Lady Cafe and Catering as the first restaurant in Jacksonville to become Blue Zones Project Approved. Blue Zones-approved restaurants, grocery stores and worksites are one way to highlight partners who are playing a key role in the community’s overall well-being and adopting Blue Zones best practices.
Blue Zones is also working to support the relaunch of Duval County Food Policy Council, spearheaded by Mia Hobdy of the New Town Success Zone, an agency that provides place-based continuum of services for New Town residents. The council hopes to be a unified voice supporting projects like The People’s Market opening early 2024 in one of Jacksonville’s 40 food deserts, and the University of North Florida’s Meals on Wings program, which delivers food to seniors in need, along with many other efforts focused on improving food security in Northeast Florida. From garden plots to policy changes, community-led efforts are building a future where the bounty of our local food system is not out of reach, and everyone has a seat at the table.
