Blog Post 4: Farewell
This post concludes our community kitchen journey! Not only were we able to successfully collect data through our surveys for the City of Vancouver, but it was also a great learning experience for all of us in multiple aspects.
Executive Summary for the Final Report:
The City of Vancouver acknowledges the significance of community food security, ensuring community members affordable, safe, nutritious, culturally appropriate, and ecologically sound food at all times. The City also identifies publicly accessible kitchens as an important community-based food asset in the local food system. As such, our project is part of an extensive study that looks at the physical conditions of existing publicly accessible kitchens across Vancouver. With the goal to inform and assist the City of Vancouver’s Social Policy Department in decision making and planning, food assets are to be improved.
This project in particular focused on the West Point Grey and Kitsilano neighbourhoods, which are characterized by high average income, a strong local food scene, and a large senior population. For the purposes of our study (to assess the physical conditions and programs of the identified kitchens, and clarify the roles of these kitchens as emerging food security), we define publicly accessible kitchens as venues that provide meal programs and cooking activities for specific groups of people. To complete our research, kitchens were first identified through purposive sampling. We approached kitchens through emails, phone, and in-person. In total, we were able to survey five kitchens. The overall class consisting of six different groups surveying other areas on Vancouver was able to survey 13 kitchens. Our one group’s kitchen results accounted for almost half of all 13 kitchens’ results. This could perhaps be an indication of the number of community kitchens in the Point Grey and Kitsilano neighbourhoods or that kitchens in these areas are easier to find and contact in comparison to other neighbourhoods.
Assessments were then conducted using personal observations and a standardized survey provided by the Social Policy Department. The survey included quantitative data, while observations allowed for qualitative data. Results showed that in term of status quo, there is no trend regarding physical conditions of facilities and funding among kitchens. With regard to programming, most kitchens were used frequently by members or outside groups for a variety of activities. When assessing the role of these kitchens in community food security, we found that the kitchens do not increase accessibility to healthy and culturally appropriate food. When assessing the role of these kitchens, we found that they indirectly promote food security in West Point Grey/Kitsilano neighbourhoods. We found them more directly serving as sources for social functions and individual empowerment, while improving food literacy and health awareness. In the long run, this may indirectly improve food security.
With that being said, compared to collective findings in LFS 350, there is a relatively high number of community kitchens in Kitsilano and West Point Grey. Thus, we can conclude that publicly accessible kitchens play a significant roles in these neighbourhoods, though not in terms of food security. To improve the facilities and functions in the community, additional government funding is suggested.
Moments of Significance
What?
Moving towards the end of this course and community project, our group has successfully completed the data collection for the Kitsilano and Point Grey area. Coming together to discuss about our results, we have experienced a moment of significance where we were all able to understand and share knowledge about the community kitchens we visited. Collecting ideas from each member, we have tried to find common areas between facilities. However, a difficulty we have is coming up with a trend of the data, considering that our sample size is very minimal.
So What?
Realizing that it is challenging to do quantitative analysis on the limited data we collected, our group has agreed on analyzing results qualitatively rather than quantitatively. This follows the concept of a ‘Mixed Method Approach”, in which a study starts off with a quantitative method but is followed by qualitative methods that includes detailed elaboration on the subjects, in this case community kitchens (Creswell, 2003). We visited the community kitchens in small groups of two to three people. Since each member of the group visited various community facilities, it was an enlightening discussion when comparing and contrasting the assets and programmings of the facilities. The process of exchanging insights and suggesting alternative solutions to our problem, was a good learning experience for us.
However, as we started digging into each kitchen we visited for more detailed information, we realized that most of them did not meet our expectations on ‘contributing food insecurity’. We were not able to measure food security but noted that the kitchens did not play a direct role in promoting food security. The lack of food-related programming and trends made is difficult when discussing the significance and effectiveness of community kitchens in enhancing food security. But as mentioned above, by adopting qualitative analysis instead, we were able to utilize the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) concepts to discover strengths and weaknesses of each facility. Quantitative analysis would not prove to be useful because we only had five kitchens. Saying half of the kitchens we visited had this result may be misleading as our sample size was so small. Assets a community kitchen already has may not be shown through quantitative data but can be discussed through qualitative data. Thus, we used qualitative analysis to analyze our data.
Now What?
Now that we have a better overview of each of the community kitchens we visited, we will have to suggest future recommendations that can help enhance food security. Through this project, we were also able to gain learning experiences and communication skills, which are useful personal assets that we have built for our future paths.
As a group, we are proud of our work and feel that we have been challenged to apply class material to the real-world while working as a cohesive group. We have a new perspective after going into the community and encountering real-world issues.
Sources:
Creswell, J. W. (2003). Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed method approaches (Chapter 1). Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.