11-1B Brookwood Community Farm & Mattapan Food & Fitness Coalition
Grant Round:
2011 Spring
Grant Program:
Boston Grants
Grant Type:
Other Grants
Grant amount requested:
10,000.00
Grant amount awarded:
$8,000.00
Attachments
Please provide a brief description of the project for which you seek funding.
The Brookwood Community Farm and Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition will create a new produce distribution model in Mattapan, called the Good Food Market, with locally grown fruits and vegetables from the Brookwood Community Farm. The partnership between BCF and MFFC will focus on the Gallivan Public Housing complex and will create incentives for individuals who have faced barriers to participation in traditional farmers’ markets to purchase affordable, healthy foods. The market will be strategically located at the 248-unit housing complex operated by the Boston Housing Authority. This location will ensure that low-income residents have direct and easy access to the market, which research indicates is key to the success of farm vending in a low-income neighborhood where farmers market shopping is not well established. The housing complex already implements a once monthly food pantry with donations from the Greater Boston Food Bank. The Good Food Market will follow a similar structure to the food pantry – offering residents a full grocery bag of food—but will offer a fresh produce alternative to the traditional food pantry items. In order to raise awareness about the new market, BCF and MFFC will partner with area social service agencies to promote the market and implement a voucher system for subsidized purchases. 200 vouchers for a free $5 bag of produce will be distributed through the Boston Housing Authority office at Gallivan, and additional neighborhood organizations such as the Mattapan Community Health Center, the local WIC Center and Mattapan ABCD. The market seeks to bridge the gap between BCF’s two other produce distribution strategies: donation to food pantries which meet the emergency food assistance needs of individuals in crisis and sale of produce at a competitive retail price through a Community Supported Agriculture program and traditional farmers markets. The Good Food Market recognizes the large number of individuals who have not been well served by the local foods movement and seeks to foster new supporters of local agriculture, and new consumers of local, sustainably grown produce. The market will enable the farm to begin to shift its food access model to one of food justice, rather than food charity in which individuals are empowered to make healthy food choices and have the resources to do so. _Project Goals, Objectives and Activities_ The goal of the partnership between BCF and MFFC is to increase access to healthy foods in an underserved community faced with significant diet-related health issues. The primary objective through which we will achieve this goal is the creation of a Good Food Market that will distribute affordably priced, locally grown foods at the Gallivan housing complex in Mattapan. The Brookwood Community Farm will grow all of the produce and actively promote the new Good Food Market. The following timeline describes all project activities as they will be implemented in 2011. Project Implementation * Planting and harvesting of 4 acres of organically grown vegetables and fruits. (April-November 2011) * Attendance at the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition Meetings by BCF staff member (year-round) * Outreach meetings with area social service agencies including the Boston Housing Authority Gallivan Office, Mattapan Community Health Center, Mattapan ABCD, Mattapan WIC office. (April-July 2011) * Hold outreach event at Gallivan to announce the launch of the market. (June 2011) * Print and distribute 200 market vouchers to Mattapan social service agencies that serve food-insecure populations. (June 2011) * BCF staff and MFFC youth interns develop market outreach materials including flyers, market banner and newspaper bulletins. (April-July 2011) * Youth interns conduct weekly outreach in Mattapan community including posting flyers and meeting with community groups. (July-October 2011) * Attend all consecutive weeks of the Mattapan Good Food market. (June-October 2011) * Donate any additional produce to the Grow a Row for Haiti emergency food program in Mattapan. (July-October 2011)
Project Summary
The groups received a grant in 2011 to support a new produce distribution model, the “Good Food Market”, at the 248-unit Gallivant Public Housing complex in Mattapan. Currently residents from Gallivant Public Housing access food bimonthly from an on-site food pantry. The Good Food Market will be housed at the same location on alternate weeks.
Primary Issue Area:
Food
Please break-down/categorize the program expenses:
| Proposed Item | Estimated $ Amount | Would grant funds be used for this item? |
|---|---|---|
| 200 $5-per-bag vouchers | $1,000.00 | Yes |
| Market manager & outreach coordinator | $3,000.00 | Yes |
| Produce from BCF | $6,000.00 | Yes |
| Youth stipends | $2,000.00 | Yes |
| Market tent | $300.00 | Yes |
| Outreach materials (banners, printing of flyers) | $500.00 | Yes |
| Market supplies (grocery bags, scale, cash box) | $200.00 | Yes |
Whom does your group need to make this project happen?
Please explain how your group will engage members from your community in this project.
The market will be open to the general public to participate as customers, however target customers will be the residents of the 248-unit public housing complex. Opportunities for additional involvement with the Brookwood Community Farm such as participation in community volunteer days, potlucks and other on-farm events will be promoted at the market. The market will also serve as a work site for youth interns from the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition who will have the opportunity to strengthen their customer service and business skills through supervised employment as market vendors and outreach staff. Mattapan is a culturally rich, though very-low income neighborhood in Boston. Median income in Mattapan is 13% lower than that of the city as a whole and 22% of residents fall below the poverty line.1 Large areas of the community have been classified as a “food dessert” signifying limited access to healthy foods and full service grocery stores. Research indicates lack of access to healthy foods can result in diet related health problems such as diabetes, heart disease and obesity. Data from the Boston Public Health Commission’s report, Health of Boston, 2004 indicate that these health problems are more prevalent in Mattapan than in many other Boston neighborhoods: two-thirds of the adult population of Mattapan is either overweight or obese. Statistics from the Mattapan Community Health Center demonstrate that diabetes related deaths in Mattapan are nearly twice the rate for Boston as a whole. One contributor to the high rates of diet related disease is the difficulty of maintaining a healthy diet in Mattapan. A 2005 study by researchers at the Boston Medical Center found that the monthly cost to purchase a healthy diet in Mattapan exceeded the maximum food stamp benefits by $148. Healthier items were routinely unavailable from the small and medium sized stores that predominate the Mattapan food market environment. As a response to this lack of access to healthy foods, the Mattapan Food and Fitness Coalition established the Mattapan Farmers Market in the summer of 2007. Brookwood Community Farm has served as the primary farm vendor at the market for the past four years. While the market has provided an additional retail food outlet to community members, evaluation of the market has shown that barriers to participation continue for many community members. Accustomed to purchasing produce at discount or wholesale food retailers, many customers have expressed that prices remain prohibitively high even given the approximately 50% discount with which participating farmers price their goods at the market. The Mattapan Farmers Market has been fortunate to participate in the Boston Bounty Bucks program, a city-sponsored program which doubles the value of all purchases made at the market with SNAP (formerly known as food stamps). However, the market has struggled to date to achieve high redemption of SNAP benefits at the market. Research into other area farmers markets that have experienced greater SNAP redemption rates suggests that placement of the market in a site that provides services to SNAP clients will result in much higher redemption rates. Situation of this new Good Food Market at the Gallivan Housing Complex will address this issue, as the majority of residents at Gallivan are also SNAP recipients due to equivalent income requirements for residency.
If your group receives a NEGEF Grow grant, how do you plan to pay for remaining expenses?
| $ Amount | Source |
|---|---|
| $10,000.00 | NEGEF BGI Grant |
| $3,000.00 | Produce Sale |
Please list these materials or services
| Item |
|---|
| All farm labor |
| BCF administrative labor (accounting, grant admin) |
| BCF truck usage & gas |
| SNAP terminal and operating fees |
Please describe what changes will occur in your community and its environment when your group's project is successful.
Successful implementation of the project will have multiple effects on the food environment and community health in Mattapan as well as the viability of sustainable agriculture in Boston’s urban ring. * The creation of the market will provide one new retail source of healthy foods in a historical food desert. * Consumption of fruits and vegetables will increase in a nutritionally at-risk community in Mattapan through increased access to affordable fruits and vegetables through the Mattapan Good Food Market. * Additional community members will understand the importance of local organic agricultural production for conserving open space and reducing the negative environmental impacts of the conventional food system. * Over 200 new individuals will become active participants in the local, sustainable agriculture movement. To determine program implementation success and program impact, we are committed to extensive program monitoring and evalutation. We will conduct both process and outcome evaluation. Quantitative and qualitative measurements will be collected and participatory evaluation techniques used. Core objectives for the evaluation will be: * To assess how the program activies adhere to the work plan and meet stated objectives; * To document the achievement of program targets including quantity and value of food produced and distributed, number of market vouchers redeemed and number of attendees at the market. * To assess the relative strengths and growth potential of this new distribution model as a viable revenue stream for the farm.
Please list how many people in your community your group expects to actively engage in this project.
250