Check out news coverage of this project! Listen to this podcast about the USDA grant on WUFT. Additionally, read this op-ed by project staff Latashia Brimm and Staci White in the Independent Florida Alligator.
About the Food Planning Project
The Grace Grows Community Food Planning Project (GGCFP) is a community-driven process to develop a plan for improved food access in Southeast Gainesville.
Individuals who are the most impacted by an issue are generally the voices that are least heard and/or are dismissed. However, the shared life experiences of people in impacted communities represent significant expertise. Their voices are the most important in creating solutions to the issues surrounding them. Why? Day-to-day life in impacted regions requires knowledge of issues, community assets, and accessible resources for survival.
Actively addressing and resolving those issues requires this type of familiarity and expertise with the community. It’s offensive to enter a community as a guest from a place of unfamiliarity and judgment and inform its members what they need. The GGCFP works with a Community Advisory Board made up of Southeast Gainesville community members and stakeholders. This is one of the ways in which the team is creating a plan for improved food access and community ownership by engaging those that are directly impacted by the food access issues that have plagued SE Gainesville for over a decade.
Using funding from both the USDA and the Partnership for Reimagining Gainesville, this project has garnered support and engagement from Southeast Gainesville residents through a community-based participatory action research process. This process empowers impacted community members to set the vision for the positive changes they wish to see.
Writing credit: Latashia Brimm, project coordinator
About the Survey
THIS SURVEY—created by members of the Southeast Gainesville community—seeks to identify the assets and ideas of people in the community that can be part of the solution to improve food access. It is currently open to Southeast Gainesville stakeholders who want to participate. People can take the survey independently online or as an interview with a member of the Grace Grows project team. Please contact gracegardenproject@gmail.com if you would like a team member to interview you. Then they can schedule a time that works for you via Zoom, phone call, or in person.
