Julian Villafuerte Diaz is a fourth year undergraduate in the Global Resource Systems program, specialising in regional land use and urban issues, aspiring to be an environmental/regional/urban planner. He is especially interested in how the solutions to creating a sustainable city and food security in the neoliberal city are negotiated and how they can perhaps create spaces of inclusion as opposed to only perpetuating privilege and exclusion. An integral part of doing this is fieldwork into the social worlds of people in need of these solutions, and for this reason, Julian is especially excited about the Community Food Circles project, which is one such urban space where grassroots solutions to create a more just and stable Earth and Society can manifest themselves.

Cory Mejia is a fourth year undergraduate student studying Food and Nutritional Health. He is interested in the concepts of how nutrients play a major role in our day to day lives. Incorporating the basic ideas of nutrition within a community setting can help with possible solutions to issues such as having the adequate proportions of macro and micronutrients within a population, and therefore aiding with the difficulties of food insecurity.

Ilana Marder-Eppstein is a third year undergraduate in the Global Resource Systems program, specializing in food system sustainability and sovereignty. Her interests surround food justice and the effects of race, gender, and class on community food security and sustainability. Ilana is excited to work on this project to further understand how to contribute towards, and enhance the skills of a local community to achieve greater food security. She hopes to learn more about grassroots organizing and how these processes can inform policy.

Whitney Everett is a third year undergraduate student in the Food Nutrition and Health program, specializing in Food Market Analysis. Her interests are focused in the economics of food, with a special interest in food consumption. People are fascinating when looked at through the scope of Economics. It is usually assumed that people are rational in economic models, which isn’t always accurate, it is exciting to explore that deeper and get into behavioral economics and understanding the way people think about their food choices and the food market. Looking at the  economics of food security will lead to policy change and building a stronger community.  

Brandon Ray is a third year undergraduate student in the Food, Nutrition and Health program, focusing on Nutritional Sciences. Most of his studies focus on the science end of the Land and Food Systems scale, therefore, he is very excited to be doing a project on a human level instead of through textbooks and microscopes. Although he is very interested in Nutritional Sciences, the reason that he initially applied to the Food, Nutrition and Health program was to help people lead a healthier and happier life, which is nearly impossible to accomplish just by providing nutritional knowledge. This project is about helping people in a way that targets their actual and realistic needs, instead of just telling people how to eat and expecting them to be able to follow that diet, so he is eager to contribute to it.

Annie Shum is a third year undergraduate student who is in the Food, Nutrition and Health and Education Dual Degree program. She is aspiring to be a Home Economics teacher and is especially interested in teaching others how to make healthy and sustainable food choices. She chose this project because it focuses on increasing access to healthy foods in the Hastings Sunrise community, where she grew up. She hopes this project will enhance her understanding of food security and also learn how to strengthen and contribute to this community.

What we all hope to achieve in choosing this project is the experience of solution-building at the grassroots level; directly with the people for whom these solutions are intended. While our ideas on what a possible project or program to implement in the Hastings-Sunrise area may differ for now, we hope to unify and work together on a singular project and thereby not only learn from each other, but from the community stakeholders who hold the local knowledge that will be key to our success.

Project Objectives and Community Organisation Introduction

The Community Food Circles Project is operated out of the Hastings-Sunrise Community Food Network (HSCFN), which is one of 14 agencies that comprise the Vancouver Community Food Network and are supported by grants commissioned by the Vancouver Food Strategy, which is a part of the City of Vancouver’s 2020 Greenest City Action Plan which addresses food insecurity. Our project, as the second round of LFS 350 students helping Joanne MacKinnon in operating the Community Food Circles Project, has three objectives:

1. To conduct two focus groups at the Hastings-Sunrise Community Centre after having refined the questions used for the previous six.
2. To identify one implementable project that addresses the recommendations from the focus groups through one of the service providers in the HSCFN
3. To engage in the HSCFN through community events hosted by service providers, and thereby experience grassroots community development.

Impressions

So far, we have met our main point of contact in the Hastings-Sunrise Community Food Network, Joanne MacKinnon, twice already. The first time was on Monday the 23rd of January, when we touched based and discussed the nature of the project. The second time was on Thursday the 26th of January, when we met with Joanne and many of the agency service providers, stakeholders, and focus group participants to discuss the results of the community food circle project.

The Community Food Circles (CFC) Project is in its nascent stages. In 2016, the Hastings-Sunrise Community Food Network, completed a three-year strategic plan to improve the function of their network in providing food security to members in their community. Now, their mission is to address issues of food insecurity in the next three years through the CFC project.

This first year of the project, involves the formation of focus groups which will inform the development of programming to strengthen the community’s food security.  Our LFS 350 fall precedents worked with Joanne when the HSCFN was in the process of training facilitators for the focus groups. These focus groups were hosted by a number of service providers including: Kiwassa Neighborhood house, City Reach, Thunderbird Community Center, Frog Hollow Neighborhood House, and the Hastings Community Association. The food circles discussed five main questions that revolved around how each participant experienced or viewed food security. The facilitators played a key role in guiding these circles. Seven of the eight facilitators has experienced  food insecurity at some point in their lives, which is important to note when considering the focus group dynamics.

Two focus groups were carried out during the time that our precedent group was working with Joanne, and four more were conducted in December. While we are working with Joanne, we will be attending two focus groups at the Hastings-Sunrise Community Centre. The findings on the six focus groups were presented to us in the second meeting this Thursday. From here we have already started thinking about the next objective of our project: to identify one project based on the recommendations of the focus groups.

Some of the major barriers restricting food security discussed in Thursday’s briefing included: food price, mobility issues (transportation was a large barrier, especially in poor weather conditions), time, and child minding. The group brainstormed different programs to address these challenges. Some examples of programs suggested were, workshops on seasonal meal planning on a budget and an online platforms to share information on where to find cheap food on a daily or weekly basis.

Already, we have begun to encounter and think about grassroots solutions or projects that could address the caveats of food insecurity in this area. On Monday, we heard from Joanne that there is a space which used to be a permaculture garden in the neighborhood, but has functioned with little support. With planning and resources, could this become a food asset that addresses the widespread desire to garden and overcome the barriers of community garden wait lists and lack of access to gardening space that were identified in focus groups. Could this realize the potential for food security and food sovereignty for at least a handful of community members?

In Ernesto Sirolli’s TED talk presentation, he states that if individuals want to help solve a problem within a community we should “shut up and listen!” Furthermore he describes a concept called enterprise facilitation that portrays that if individuals/groups want to help a community, they first become servants of the local passion, and servants of the local people that want to do better. With these ideas in mind, we took a more observatory and supportive role in this week’s debriefing event at Hastings Sunrise Community Centre. The people we have met have great suggestions/ideas on resolving food insecurity within their community and lastly are very welcoming and full of energy. It has already been so much to process, but already we are beginning to paint a clearer picture of the next couple months with this project and of what we can expect in the end.