Get ready for the Food Justice Summit!

Walkathon and Block Party to be held Saturday, Sep. 22

Groundswell is proud to be collaborating with GreenStar Community Projects to present Ithaca’s Second Annual Food Justice Summit on Saturday, September 22nd from 10am-7pm in downtown Ithaca. The purpose of this uplifting multicultural family-friendly event is to promote social justice and community well-being and to raise funds to grow a sustainable local food system that promotes health, equity, and community control of essential resources. GreenStar Community Projects is a not-for-profit educational organization affiliated with GreenStar Cooperative Market.

Click HERE to make a donation.

A highlight of this year’s summit will be a keynote address and workshop by Charity Hicks, Co-Creator of the Detroit Food Justice Task Force and founding member of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. Hicks has worked for over ten years in research, public policy, and community activism in Detroit on health disparities, environment, food and nutrition. She is currently serving as a prestigious fellow for EAT4Health a national leadership development initiative that aims to fill gaps in the existing food policy advocacy ecosystem in order to make it more inclusive of low-income and people of color communities, more responsive to grassroots needs and ideas, and more effective in terms of protecting the environment, promoting good health, and rebuilding strong local economies.

The Food Justice Summit begins at 10am with a walk-a-thon starting at Neighborhood Pride (former Northside P&C) at 210 Hancock Street, downtown Ithaca. People of all ages are invited to register and walk up to 5 miles visiting gardens, food art mosaics and more with the chance to win exciting prizes. From noon till 7pm all are welcome to join the celebration outside Neighborhood Pride where the streets will be closed to enjoy live music including Thousands of One, Taina Asili y La Banda Rebelde and Ernest Verb as well as dance performances, youth activities, cooking demonstrations, Gardens 4 Humanity's Iron Chef Jr. competition and more!

An organic ribs and chicken BBQ & vegetarian fare featuring food from local farms will be available for a suggested donation so everyone can enjoy and be nourished by the delicious bounty of our region. Event goers can find culturally significant and socially conscious wares for sale from locally-owned businesses, and peruse dozens of informational displays from local organizations working towards social justice, sustainability and community health.

Part of the proceeds will benefit Congo Square Market, a vibrant seasonal market in the heart of Ithaca's African American community with live music, crafts and fresh produce grown by neighborhood youth. The rest of the proceeds will support a series of planning meetings which will bring together community members, organizations, businesses, and other stakeholders in the local food system, to plan the infrastructure, distributions systems, financing, and other pieces of the just food system we need.

For additional information visit www.FoodJusticeSummit.org or contact info@GreenStarCommunityProjects.org or 607-379-9725.

Ithaca’s Growing Food Justice Movement

By Kirtrina Baxter

The food justice movement in Ithaca and surrounding areas is spreading fast. What exactly is a food justice movement, you ask? Well, according to Robert Gottlieb and Anupama Joshi, authors of the book Food Justice,

“Food advocates may work on several different issue areas, but share the common goal of challenging the injustices that exist throughout the dominant industrial and increasingly globalized food system. By striving to alleviate these injustices in the entire food system, the Food Justice movement is linked to and supports allied movements such as those related to the environment, land use, health, immigration, worker rights, economic and community development, cultural integrity, and social justice.”

For decades, there has been a robust local foods movement in our area, promoting healthier ways to eat while educating people on sustaining our community. However, because the planning of this was not inclusive, ultimately the benefits of this movement have not been shared by all. The food justice movement strives to correct this fact by engaging communities of color and those of limited means so that they too have access to affordable, healthy food choices. Not only that, but the food justice movement serves to include diverse voices in the planning of a local food system that benefits all populations of our community and address issues of disparities and inequities. But as the definition above alludes to, the food justice movement seeks to provide a holistic approach to addressing the inadequacies of our current food system.

The fight against our current food system is also about community health. The rates of diabetes and high blood pressure disproportionately affect people in communities of color and next, people in lower income ranges. Information about the connections between our health and our eating habits are being addressed somewhat by health agencies, however, giving community members the resources to access culturally relevant food solutions is still a large problem.