The Capital Area Food Equity Coalition met together on 9/7/22 to discuss creating a unified project to collaborate on and share resources. In this meeting, the coalition was able to start listing out the opportunities and creatively providing solutions that would not only help serve but educate and meet the spectrum of needs those facing food insecurity may have.
The CAFE co-chairs, Jan Ross and Dr. Cailtyn Scales welcomed the coalition members with a reminder of the coalition’s mission statement “Decrease the number of individuals in the Capital Region experiencing food insecurity" and goals. With this in mind, the breakout working groups formed in 4 distinct areas: Family & Child Hunger, Advocacy, Urban Farmers, and Equity & Access.
n attendance were cornerstone members of the food access community such as Kelli Rogers (Geaux Get Healthy), Mike Manning (Baton Rouge Area Food Bank), Darlene Rowland (BREDA), Emily Chatelain (Three O'Clock Project) Katrina Ward (BREC), Carl Motsenbocker (LSU Ag), and OneRouge generous supporters George Bell (Capital Area United Way), Christine Compton (American Heart Association) and David Beach (Huey & Angelina Wilson Foundation). Click the drop-down at the bottom to see the full list, many thanks to all the organizations coming together in the collective impact work.
In the Equity & Access Working Group, members discussed the starting steps toward a successful food share. First surveying the resources in the group, such as connecting to CAUW’s 211 system and the potential utilization of BREC’s transportation system. Additional needs are to define the target audience and understand the potential barriers to access. From that, many opportunities for collaboration arise, such as hosting a SNAP education/registration at the event or urban ag training so that families can also grow food in their homes or neighborhoods.
In the Advocacy Working Group, Fran Harvey and Dr. Caitlyn Scales discussed the strategies needed to understand “Where’s the food?” by creating a survey and data collection tool to understand local food access. This action would get these resources into the community at large and coalition members can all add to the data over time. Additional technology, such as “story-mapping” from GIS and UpMetrics to help create a buildable baseline of what is needed and where it can be found.
In the Family & Child Hunger Working Group, members discussed the importance of establishing consistent food share events throughout the city, intentionally and consistently. Acknowledging the need of working with community advocates to identify what is needed, such as Ascent who has worked over years to build a great communication network, and FrontYard Bikes for potential deliveries. Additionally discussed was how food shares create an opportunity to open the door to greater impact, creating a moment to understand further the needs of those attending and creating actionable plans to bridge those gaps.
Many action items came from this meeting, such as connecting a “Farm to Pantry” system at school gardens, creating a rubric to anticipate the best accessible locations for food shares, understanding the steps for BREC transportation support, CAUW building the first participant model from their existing system data, and BREADA and LSU identifying possible training topics.
CAFE Coalition Meetings are held the first Wednesday of each month, with the next meeting happening on October 5, 2022 at 2 PM. All meetings are accessible through our shared calendar.
CAFE Member Attendance List
Co-Chair: Jan Ross (Wilson Foundation) Co-Chair: Caitlyn Scales (Three O'Clock Project)
Co-Chair: Emily Chatelain (Three O'Clock Project)
Mike Manning (Greater Baton Rouge Food Bank)
Lisa Gray (BREADA)
Darlene Rowland (BREADA)
Allison Flynn (BREADA)
Alia Ledford (BREADA)
George Bell (Capital Area United Way)
Bre'Anna Perkins (Capital Area United Way)
Kate King (Capital Area United Way)
David Beach (Wilson Foundation)
Kelli Rogers (Geaux Get Healthy)
Katrina Ward (BREC)
Rex Cabaniss (WHLC Architecture)
Sydney Epps (LSU)
Christine Compton (American Heart Association)
Fran Harvey (Global Geospatial Institute)
Carl Motsenbocker (LSU Ag)
Cristy Davidson (HOPE Ministries)
Simone (Guest)
Judy Touzin (MetroMorphosis)
Sherreta Harrison (MetroMorphosis)
Helena Williams (Walls Project)
Casey Phillips (Walls Project)
Samantha Morgan (Walls Project)
SK Groll (Walls Project)
Pepper Roussel (OneRouge)