It may have been a while since you filled out our online survey or we knocked on your door to talk about food access in our neighborhood.  Thank you for your patience and I am happy to finally be able to share some cool updates with you!   

Our food access work in Elliot Park is being led by a small and dedicated group of residents (we like to call them our "food leaders").  Each food leader represents an area or demographic of our neighborhood.  We have taken extra care to make sure that our lower-income, people of color, senior citizen, and renter neighbors are represented on this team.  Six of our eight food leaders and shown in this photo.

You may have seen that we finished our neighborhood food access survey and have shared the data on our website.  We spent the first few months of this year learning all about food access issues and needs in our neighborhood.  Though our survey is done, we will always be listening to the stories, needs, and wishes of our community, so let us know what sort of food access you want in the neighborhood!

Recently our food leaders have been learning about innovative food organizations!  They have had guest speakers from Nokomis East Neighborhood, from the Minneapolis Healthy Living Initiative, have visited Hampden Park Coop, are planning a trip to Appetite for Change, and are learning about why the Wirth Coop closed.  Do you have some ideas about innovative solutions that we should look into?  Please let us know!

Our food leaders, who are almost all lower-income residents, have voted to open up a seat in the food leadership team for a middle to upper income resident.  If you are very passionate about food justice and are interested in joining our food leadership team, then let us know!  

Thank you all for being part of our community!  Special thanks to Headwaters Foundation for Justice for funding this work.