Making food more accessible in underserved neighborhoods

Six years ago, a nonprofit approached the City of San Diego about leasing a vacant plot in the Mount Hope neighborhood where they wanted to start a community garden. Today, that garden is one-third of an acre with 40 garden beds that people in the community use as members of that garden, where they grow food and flowers.

 

“A disproportionate percentage of residents in southeastern San Diego suffer from chronic, life-threatening diseases that can be traced to diet, nutrition and physical activity. And food insecurity is increasing,” she says. “Our goal of improving fresh food access in southeastern San Diego is part of a broad-based movement to build healthy neighborhoods.”

 

Moss, 59, lives in southeastern San Diego and has a history of working to help people in underserved communities with their health. Along with leading Project New Village, she also works as the African-American campaign health coordinator for the Be There Cardiac Disparities Project at UC San Diego, and has previously served as a health educator, family planning counselor, nonprofit director and lecturer. She took some time to talk about her work with the nonprofit, creating equitable food systems, and what she’s growing in her own small garden at home.

 

Q: Tell us about Project New Village.

 

A: Project New Village is a grassroots, nonprofit organization, which provides access to healthy food for those without it today. It is an authentic community development agent that repurposes resources for the biggest positive impact, and is changing relationships between people in southeastern San Diego and their food for improved health and for social and economic justice. It was established in 1994 as a community hub for collaborative efforts to increase social wellness. In 2008, we began our journey to explore and develop strategies to address inequities in the local food system and became a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization in 2010.

 

Q: Your work is heavily focused on food and health, particularly with building an equitable food system. What exactly is a “food system”?

 

A: A food system is the path that food travels from field to fork. It includes the growing, harvesting, processing, packaging, transporting, marketing, consuming, and disposing of food. A sustainable community food system is a collaborative network that integrates sustainable food production, processing, distribution, consumption and waste management in order to enhance the environmental, economic and social health of a particular place. The system consists of the processes in place that bring food to your table each day. It is the people, fields, machines and organizations involved in creating the products.

 

Q: How do these systems function?

 

A: The food system is part and parcel of the historical pattern of denying certain people land, resources and power based on their ethnic group and/or skin color. Models of cultivation, harvest, processing and delivery exploited the labor of people of color who, through their underpaid or slave labor, helped to sustain an abundance of low-cost of food. These patterns persist. The U.S. food supply and it’s relative abundance and low cost today is largely dependent on labor inputs from migrant farm workers, who often do not have citizen status, are underpaid for seasonal work and live with the threat of deportation.

 

What I love about southeastern San Diego…

 

My neighbors.

 

Q: In what ways is the current food system in San Diego inequitable?

 

A: In a country of such abundance, millions of families cannot access healthy food and many food system workers do not earn enough to make ends meet, often relying on food stamps. Low-income communities and communities of color often lack grocery stores or other fresh food markets along with the jobs and economic opportunities these businesses bring to neighborhoods.

 

Q: What do you think is necessary to make the food system here more equitable?

 

A: The strategies for creating an equitable food system include expanding healthy food retail options in underserved neighborhoods; supporting community gardens and local food production; leveraging large institutions’ purchasing power to ensure good food and good jobs for all; healthy food offerings within institutions that serve vulnerable populations, like schools, hospitals, and jails; helping small farmers survive and grow; growing food enterprises that incorporate social goals into their missions and can ensure quality jobs and other community benefits; raising the wages and quality of food and farming jobs; and protecting and strengthening food assistance programs.

 

Q: What kind of difference will this make in the communities you serve?

 

A: An equitable food system would produce different outcomes by making healthy food available to all, providing good jobs, and fostering healthy neighborhoods. And it would strengthen the economy by bolstering incomes, spurring business development, and contributing to equitable economic development in segregated and long-distressed neighborhoods.

 

Q: What are your goals for Project New Village?

 

A: We are currently facilitating a multifaceted project to create decentralized, neighborhood-based food hubs and cooperatives in southeastern San Diego. This project connects residents and partners to work together on food-oriented spaces, resulting in neighborhood destinations that promote the purchasing and consumption of neighborhood-sourced food.

 

Q: You also manage the Mount Hope community garden. Tell us about the garden.

 

A: We have 40 garden beds for personal use, and the garden members include neighborhood residents, social groups, and educational and emotional healing groups. For $5 a month, members grow food and flowers for their own use. Additionally, we have market garden space where we grow food to sell and share. We currently have fruit and trees, including nectarines, pomegranates, apricots, plums, pears, figs, kumquats, loquats, apples and citrus. We are also growing varieties of berries, peppers, eggplant, corn, squash, okra, tomatoes, beets, bananas and more.

 

Q: Do you garden at home?

 

A: I have little time to garden at home since I go to the Mount Hope garden three times a week to water, harvest and document and observe. However, I do have some peppers, tomatoes, lavender and sage growing in my yard.

 

Q: What’s been challenging about your social justice work with food systems?

 

A: Working with neighborhoods most impacted by the current inequitable food system, I see that people are living their lives dealing with everyday challenges, and as an organizer, I am asking my neighbors to shift their thinking to embrace change toward more sustainable and fair practices. I am asking them to resist the convenience presented by the current industrialized food system. I am asking them to trust that there is a better way, and I am asking them to get involved. The difficulty is the patience and resolve necessary to be helpful in our transition.

 

Q: What’s been rewarding about it?

 

A: I am inspired by the hard work done by people who have paved the way, and those who continue to work for change in the food system. Oppressed communities have developed ways of healing from historical trauma, knowing that we lift up the accomplishments of those whose shoulders we stand on. As one example, for the past six years Project New Village has hosted our Fannie Lou Hamer Legacy Celebration on her birthday (Oct. 6, 1917). We gather to commemorate her contributions as a forerunner in the good food movement. This event is always rewarding, and this year marks her 100th birthday anniversary celebration.

 

Q: What has your work taught you about yourself?

 

A: I am a social change agent, deeply rooted in the belief of community resilience and committed to building community. I work every day to identify and build alternative routes of resistance based on regenerative work. I truly believe that we must be actively engaged in making the quality of life better for all.

 

Q: What is the best advice you’ve ever received?

 

A: In 2016, I was the primary caregiver for my mom, who had dementia. She taught me how to care for her. She challenged me to be better with my words.

 

Q: What is one thing people would be surprised to find out about you?

 

A: In my quiet time, I like to color in coloring books.

 

Q: Describe your ideal San Diego weekend.

 

A: Getting up early on Saturday and going to the garden to water plants before the heat of the day, then engaging in some community activity like a health fair or activist gathering, and ending the day with food, friends and music. Then rising early on Sunday to embrace the day, on to having dinner with my longtime sister friend and her dog, Sophie. And finally, some quiet time to read, rest and relax.