Summit Summary

  • Ephraim Palmero, Assistant Program Officer at LISC Indy:
    • LISC Indy is the local office for the LISC national organization. It is classified as a Community Development Financial Institution and provides support to organizations through funding and convening collaborations.
    • Ephraim works with food systems and social determinants of health. He focuses on supporting urban farms, community gardens, and other community-based organizations with a food or agriculture component.
    • Ephraim manages the Equitable Food Access Initiative, which is mainly supported through funding from the Anthem Foundation (now Elevance). They support eight communities around Indianapolis with funding and are primarily working with the North Eastside through UNEC but will focus on the Near Eastside in the future. The second round of implementation funding for these communities will be $600,000 next year and will be mostly invested in the North Eastside.
  • Rachel Lowry, Food Systems Specialist at the Marion County Public Health Department (MCPH):
    • Rachel works in the chronic disease department which takes a preventative approach to health rather than focusing on immunizations.
    • Rachel runs a health retail program to work with corner stores to offer healthier options and fresh produce for customers.
    • MCPH has a Fresh Bucks program which allows SNAP recipients to double their SNAP dollars at farmers markets.
    • Rachel’s coworker runs a free diabetes class, with classes coming up in January and February 2023, and MCPH will be partnering for a Rethink Your Drink campaign to encourage Indy neighbors to drink more milk and water and less sugary drinks.
    • There are no winter farmers markets on the Eastside. The two winter farmers markets accepting Fresh Bucks are Growing Places Indy’s market at the Amp and the Broad Ripple Winter Market. SNAP recipients can also double their SNAP dollars for fresh produce at all Safeway stores in Indianapolis. The closest Safeway is at 16th and Emerson Ave.
  • Keisha McKinney, Communications Manager at Westminster Neighborhood Services (WNS):
    • WNS serves the entire Near Eastside. They have a food pantry open to Near Eastside residents every Monday and Thursday from 9 AM to Noon and the third Wednesday of each month from 9 AM to Noon. They also have a soup kitchen on the same days, from 10 AM to Noon. Near Eastside residents can visit the food pantry twice per month with a piece of mail stating their address, and non-Near Eastside residents can visit once and receive information about a food pantry in their area of residence. Any Indianapolis resident can visit the soup kitchen whenever it is open.
    • WNS offers an afterschool program for students from the surrounding schools. WNS transports them and gives them a snack and dinner.
    • WNS also has a summer program for students which runs from morning to evening. Students have breakfast, lunch, and dinner at WNS while working on their homework and doing arts, crafts and other activities.
    • WNS is giving Christmas Baskets to 350 families with 700 children in December. The baskets include Christmas fixings, two weeks of groceries, a gift for the children, and needed winter clothing. WNS is still in need of people to shop for the children. Updates can be found on the WNS Facebook page.
  • Rainie Grant, Near Eastside Community Builder with the John Boner Neighborhood Centers:
    • The Neighborhood Food Champions (NFC) program is run by Rhonda Bayless from the Centers of Wellness for Urban Women and Milele Kennedy with the City of Indianapolis.
    • NFC hosts a cohort each year for anybody interested in continuing or starting a food-related project in their neighborhood, such as a community garden, urban farm, farmers market, grocery store, etc. It provides education for capacity building and professional development, such as grant writing workshops, and provides access to resources such as the Purdue Master Gardeners and garden tours. They also provide assistance in applying for the Indy Food Fund which opens after the cohort ends.
    • A new locally-owned grocery store was developed through NFC and will be opening in the 46218 area.
    • Rainie created a community garden on the Near Westside for the Muslim community with a partner who participated in the NFC program and highly recommends it. NFC continues to send information about food-related opportunities after a member finishes the program.
    • In a webinar, equitable food access advocates expressed that they felt that the term “food desert” perpetuates racism and that they prefer the term “food apartheid” to more accurately depict the intentional diversion of food resources from specific communities.
  • Attendees were asked to look at food-related action items from the Near Eastside Quality of Life Plan and write their ideas, suggestions and interest in implementing those items. Organization representatives were asked to write how their organization could support neighbors wanting to implement the items. Action item notes will be included below.

 

Recording Transcript

Rainie: We’re going to go ahead and get started. We have a really small group. I think maybe it’s a weather thing. It’s really cold today. But, my name is Rainie Grant for those of you who don’t know me. I am the Near Eastside Community Builder. I work for the John Boner Neighborhood Centers, and I manage the Near Eastside Quality of Life Plan. If anybody’s interested in learning more about the plan, we have the whole thing that you can downline on the website, neareastplan.org, in case you’re interested in the 72-page plan. *Laughs* If you don’t want to do that, you can just look at the short list. There’s also a flyer on the table if you’re interested in just kind of like a summary of what’s included.

So, I’m very excited that you’ve all joined us today. I know it’s a really small group. I was hoping for more [people] so we could have a richer discussion, but I will take quality over quantity, so to speak. Today we’re talking about food, food systems, food insecurity, and I have a few speakers today who are going to talk to us about some of the work being done in Indianapolis and how all of us can get more involved in the issue here in Indiana. So, I want to ask Ephraim first. I don’t think you really need to stand up if you don’t want to. Everyone can see Ephraim? He is the Assistant Director of Food Systems and Social Determinants of Health at LISC Indianapolis, and I’m going to put this mic on you so the recording picks you up.

Ephraim: Oh, okay. I’ll stand up.

Attendee: Can you reintroduce yourself again as well?

Ephraim: Yeah, yeah. That was very nice for [Rainie] to say, but I am not a director yet. *Laughs* My name is Ephraim Palmero. I’m an assistant program officer at LISC Indianapolis. We’re classified as a Community Development Financial Institution, so we’re more of a funder and a supporter and more of a convener in Indianapolis. We represent a national organization, but I work in the local office here. And my focus with LISC is, I focus on the food systems and the social determinants of health, which means a lot of my work around Indianapolis focuses on helping urban farms, community gardens, and community-based organizations that have a food component or an agriculture component within their organizations. So, we provide funding and support for those that are interested in that endeavor.

One of the big things I manage is called the Equitable Food Access Initiative. It is—our main funding partner there is the Anthem Foundation, just Elevance now. And so, what that entails is that they support us, they give us funds to support eight communities here around Indianapolis. The Near Eastside is one of them in the future, but right now our primary investment is the North Eastside with UNEC being our main partner. That’s the United Northeast Community Development Corporation. One of the things that we are looking to implement, starting next year, is the first round—the second round of implementation funding. That’s going to be around $600,000 that’s going to be completely invested towards our community, particularly in the Northeast, and then later on, we plan to implement that same model and format in the Near Eastside as well. But, I just wanted to share a little bit of what we do and to just put our organization out there as a supporter and also as a connector, so then, if residents such as your community members are interested or have knowledge of community farms or urban gardens or food entrepreneurs or projects that are interested in funding, we can have that conversation with them. Or if we don’t know, we may know someone else who may be able to help as well. Because half of my work, too, is just being able to connect our various partners within the local food system and making sure they have the support that they need. If we don’t have it, I’m sure there’s another partner in our space that could gladly have that conversation with them. Thank you, Rainie.

Rainie: Thank you, and next I’ll ask Rachel Lowry from the Marion County Public Health food systems, I believe, to talk a little bit about their work and what they do. You can just hold [the microphone] or put it on your sweater.

Rachel: I’ll clip it here, so I can… Yeah, so like Rainie said, my name is Rachel Lowry. I am the food systems specialist at the Marion County Public Health Department. I work in the chronic disease department, specifically, so we’re very preventative focused for chronic diseases and not so much in the realm of immunizations and other things like that in our department. We do a lot with food system work, so I primarily do kind of a healthy retail program. I work with corner stores to just kind of add some healthier options if they’re interested, starting with kind of shelf stable items, and then, you know, if fresh produce is an option, and then help with some equipment and introducing whatever healthy options work for their customers.

We also have the Fresh Bucks program. I brought a few flyers and things. So this is where you can double your SNAP dollars at the farmers markets, both the winter and the summer farmers markets. So I have more flyers for that. I also have a free diabetes class that one of my coworkers does. I brought flyers for that, too. There’s some classes coming up in January, February, and we also are partnering for a, what’s called, a Rethink Your Drink campaign all across Indianapolis to help encourage people to drink more milk and water and less sugary beverages. I think that’s everything I have for today, so thanks so much for having me here.

Rainie: Question?

Attendee: What winter farmers markets are going on right now? I know the [summer] markets are coming to an end because of the colder weather. I know there are some in winter. Are there any on the Eastside anywhere?

Rachel: Not on the Eastside. There’s really not many farmers markets at all on the Eastside, unfortunately. The closest one would be at the Amp, kind of downtown. It’s the Indy Winter Farmers Market. It’s through Growing Places Indy which is in the neighborhood, and I have a flyer with the address. And then there’s also Broad Ripple Winter Market. There might be another one, but I know those two are where you can use the Fresh Bucks at least.

Attendee: Circle City Industrial Complex isn’t doing winter [markets] anymore?

Rachel: No, Growing Places moved from there to the Amp, so I think this is their second or third year? And then we also just implemented this Fresh Bucks program at all Safeway locations in Indianapolis. I mean, I guess the closest one to here would be 16th and Emerson, and anybody that uses SNAP can double dollars for fresh produce at the Safeway store. So I have information about that, too, to give out and maybe just leave here as well.

Rainie: Are there any other questions for Rachel?

Attendee: What store is that?

Rachel: All the Safeway stores. Yeah, so, yeah. 16th and Emerson I guess would be the closest to here.

Rainie: Any other questions for Rachel? And I’m sorry, I forget to ask if anybody had questions for Ephraim about LISC.

Okay. Right now I want to ask Keisha, Miss Keisha, if she could come up and give a little bit more information about Westminster. I know there’s probably some of us who haven’t really been in this space before, and they do a lot of great work in the neighborhood. They’re one of our lead agency partners specifically focused in this area of health—no problem—health, family strengthening. Thank you.

Keisha: You’re welcome.

Rainie: You can hold [the mic] or put it on your sweater.

Keisha: Okay. I’ll just hold it. Okay, my name is Keisha McKinney. I am the communications manager here at Westminster Neighborhood Services, so what we do, we do serve the Near Eastside of Indianapolis. We have a little map over here. We have a food pantry Monday and Thursday from 9 AM to Noon. And then the third Wednesday of every month we have a senior pantry from 9 AM to Noon. And then every pantry we have a hot meal, so neighbors can go through the pantry, shop. We have a point system. There’s a lot of things in there that aren’t points. We have a lot of fresh produce that does come from, like, Growing Places. And then we partner with some grocery stores around town that donate items to us as well. So, they can go through the pantry. They can have a hot meal.

We also do have an afterschool program for the children in the surrounding schools. We go and pick them up. They come here. They have snack. They have dinner, which actually comes from Seconds Helpings, so they’re partnering with us as well. And we have a summer program where the kids are here from morning to evening. They have breakfast, lunch, and dinner here. And we just do homework. They do a lot of crafts and lots of fun stuff. Ms. Brooke and Ms. CeCe are here. They are involved in that as well. So, we just do a lot of overall stuff. We’re actually about to have our Christmas Baskets where we are serving 350 families and over 700 children, so we will provide Christmas fixings, two weeks’ worth of groceries, and then, a gift for the children, hats, gloves, and things like that. So, just a little plug if anybody’s interested, we do have a lot of children left to shop for as well. So, that’s kind of what we do here at Westminster. Any questions?

Attendee: About how many [kids] do you have in the afterschool program?

Keisha: Right now, I believe, we have 34? 32? 32 kids in the afterschool program.

Attendee: The senior pantry is every which Wednesday?

Keisha: It’s the third Wednesday of every month. We just actually had it, so, and I usually try to make sure to post that on Facebook or something like that, so people remember. That’s usually the best place to kind of know where things are going on here at Westmin and things like that.

Rainie: Yes?

Attendee: I have a question about the food pantry. Is it open to anybody or do folks have to sign up first before being able to go through the food pantry?

Keisha: Oh, great question. So, our food pantry is for our neighbors here on the Near Eastside, but the great thing is if you come and you aren’t in our boundaries, we will serve you the first time and then we’ll help you find somewhere that’s in your boundaries.

Rainie: Are there any other questions for Keisha? Yes?

Attendee: But is the soup kitchen open to anyone?

Keisha: Yes. The soup kitchen is open to anyone. So, our food pantry, you can come twice a month, and you do have to have a piece of mail with your current address, but you can visit the soup kitchen any time it’s open, including senior days. So anybody, don’t even have to be in the boundaries.

Attendee: When is the soup kitchen?

Keisha: The soup kitchen is the same time as food pantry. I think the soup kitchen usually actually starts closer to, like, 10:30-ish or so. 10 o’clock, so, but yeah, same day, Mondays, Thursdays, and the third Wednesday.

Rainie: Okay.

Keisha: Thank you.

Rainie: Thank you very much. You got some cheers. [You] did a great job. Yes, so we were going to have someone from the Neighborhood Food Champions come and talk about that program, but since they’re not here, I’ll give a little spiel. The Neighborhood Food Champions is a program that runs through the Center for Urban Women and Wellness, I believe that’s the acronym? [Correction: Centers of Wellness for Urban Women] And I’m getting head nods, so thank you. *Laughs* I was putting down CWUW, and slight dyslexia. So, the Neighborhood Food Champions is a program. Each year they have a cohort. You don’t have to be a woman. It’s open for anybody who basically wants to do a food-related project in their neighborhood. It might be a community garden or an urban farm, or you might want to open a farmers market or a grocery store. We have a new grocery store coming in in 46218, just north of Irvington, I believe. That’s a locally started and funded food initiative that came through the Neighborhood Food Champions program. And they also give you assistance in capacity building and professional development through grant writing workshops, and you have access to people such as the Purdue Master Gardeners. You can go and do tours at different—they take tours to different gardens and urban farms around the city. It’s wonderful. I went on one of their tours to, like, three different gardens in one day, I think. And so, you can see what works in different neighborhoods and all the work that they’ve had to, that they’ve put into it, and how they serve the local community. It’s a great initiative run by Rhonda Bayless and Milele Kennedy with the City [of Indianapolis]. And they also help you if would like—usually after that cohort ends, the Indy Food Fund opens. And so, you have the ability to apply for the Indy Food Fund to continue getting funding for whatever initiative you started through the program. I can actually speak from some experience. I didn’t go through the program entirely, my partner on the project did, but we started a community garden on the Near Westside for the Muslim community over there. And so, my partner went through the program. I jumped on a couple of meetings, and we didn’t apply for the Indy Food Fund, because we’re still very beginner level, and we’re not looking to broaden capacity just yet. But it is a valuable program, and basically, from the beginning of you starting that program you’re going to be some type of member of NFC forever, because they will continuously send you opportunities, information about opportunities related to the subject of food. So, if anybody here is interested in, you know, doing a food-related project in the neighborhood, that’s definitely a program I would recommend looking at. I just wanted to give—yes?

Attendee: You said Rhonda and?

Rainie: Rhonda Bayless and Milele Kennedy. It’s M-I-L-E-L-E.

Attendee: Milele?

Rainie: Yeah, yep. They’re great. I love them. Wonderful ladies. Are there any other questions? Great. One other thing I wanted to mention, it’s not related to any program or initiative, but something I just learned recently. There’s a lot of webinars out there about equitable food access, food justice, which is something that we’re focused on, especially with LISC’s Equitable Food Access Initiative. I watched a webinar, and they were discussing the term “food desert,” so that’s the term that’s used very frequently in this work, right? And we’re like, yeah, that term makes total sense. There’s no food. But there were people in that meeting who were saying that they saw the term “food desert” as perpetuating racism. And before anybody, you know, pops out of their seat, like “Hey!”, I will explain why. So, “food desert” implies that, naturally, there are no resources available, right? Because when you go to a desert, it’s just dry, like, that’s just the environment. You know, that’s what you sign up for when you go there. However, the actual thing that is going on is what they prefer to call “food apartheid.” It’s a very intentional process where the community is oppressed, marginalized, and food opportunities are diverted from those neighborhoods, usually due to income in the area or other factors. And so, we get these pockets of neighborhoods that don’t have any decent food, quality food. And so, the phrase that—the term that they prefer is “food apartheid” and not “food desert.” Just a little, not so fun but interesting tidbit that I learned a couple weeks ago that I thought you might be interested in. If you have any conversations about this topic, educating whoever you’re conversing with, because it’s actually a more accurate depiction of what’s going on in the area.

And so, with that, I would like us to shift gears. We’re shifting out of the really boring listening part—no, it’s not boring. I know you’re all excited to listen to what everybody has to say. We’re going to get up and stretch our legs, and I’m going to explain to you what we’re going to do next.

*Attendees stand*

Rainie: So, you notice that there are pens on your tables, and I would like you to get one of those pens. And I’m going to bring around some sticky notes for you. And… Everyone has… okay, cool. What I’d like you to do is take a look around the room. You might’ve noticed when you came in that there are big sheets of paper stuck to the wall. Each of those sheets has a specific action item from the Quality of Life Plan, in both English and Spanish just in case we had any Spanish speakers here. So, you can see all the food-related items from the plan on the walls, and what I would like you to do is to go—we can have half an hour or whenever people are, you know, finished to read the items and come up with ideas, suggestions, and interest level in how to implement those items. So you might say, like, there was an item that I didn’t include in this, like, create a community food box. You might say “Oh we can put that at this location”. Westminster has a food box outside. So that might be an idea or suggestion, but stuff like that. Does anybody have any questions before we begin? Okay, awesome. Please think about your community and what you feel your community needs, and we’ll go ahead and get started.

*Attendees walk around to do the activity*

Rainie: Also, if you have any questions about anything, please feel free to come to me and ask me any time.

*Attendee asks question about indicating interest in a particular item*

Rainie: Also, if you’re a partner who’s spoken today, maybe you can write some of the ways that your organization may be able to help with these items if neighbors are interested in implementing them.

*Camera pans shakily around room and is then picked up and moved toward a wall with action items*

Rainie: So, Ephraim, little interview. What do you think about this item [action item 5.13]?

Ephraim: So this item talks about providing support for urban farms and community gardens. And for me, representing LISC, I want to include a recommendation which pretty much represents a call to action for us to increase our funding for the Near Eastside. That means we should identify funding opportunities that focus on this neighborhood and for this community that caters specifically towards urban farm development and community farm development, so that we can also encourage folks that have ideas in this community that if they have something worth exploring or advocating for, they have the resources that they need to pursue that.

Rainie: That’s great.

Ephraim: That’s me.

Rainie: We love money. *Laughs*

*Camera moves toward other attendees*

Rainie: Jim, I’m gonna do a little interview.

Attendee: Are you now?

Rainie: Yeah! Making it interesting.

Attendee: Okay.

Rainie: What are your thoughts on these items? You can talk about specific items if you’d like.

Attendee: I’m interested in the [items] that have to do with collaborating with the Indy Food Council, because I attend their meetings. And also, regarding the transportation, because I am very familiar with IndyGo and what their plans are.

Rainie: Awesome.

Attendee: Try and coordinate the…coordinate.

Rainie: Coordinate the collaborations?

Attendee: Yes, coordinate the collaboration and coordinate IndyGo with what, you know, the food summit goals are.

Rainie: Awesome. Thank you.

Alvaro, I’m doing a little interview.

Attendee: Oh, hello there.

Rainie: What are your thoughts?

Attendee: Well, looking around, I’ve had—I thought about maybe, for example, enhancing some of the programs, like, for example, over there [an action item] has something about offering classes to educate people on, just, healthy alternatives. Focusing [on] maybe bringing some of those to the school or other places like the Boner Center. So, just you know, spreading the word more widely.

Rainie: That’s great.

Attendee: And I’m still trying to think of some of the other ones.

Rainie: Sure.

*Recording ends*

Action Item Notes (Ideas and Suggestions for Implementation)

  • Action 2.5: Provide public education on healthy diets, cooking on a budget, gardening and related topics.
    • Partner with schools, offer during school hours
    • Marion County Public Health Department: ABC’s of Diabetes – free diabetes classes, Nutrition Services can teach classes
    • ADHD/Autism mental
    • Organize classes at the John Boner Neighborhood Centers, schools, and daycares with speakers to outline the importance of this topic
  • Action 4.3: Offer classes to engage families in health activities together (e.g. cooking, arts and crafts, games and fitness).
    • Offer gift cards and free food giveaway
    • Corporate partner sponsor activities
    • Zoned neighborhood program activities
    • Expand the classes to the schools in the area to get the parents more engaged
  • Action 5.1: Open an affordable grocery store or co-op
    • Open grocery at La Parada where grocery closed 10 years ago.
    • Is this financially feasible?
    • LISC: Provide more business funding for retail start-up
    • How to prevent what is causing stores to close and bring them back to the neighborhood?
  • Action 5.2: Develop a comprehensive 10-year food strategy for the Near Eastside.
    • No notes.
  • Action 5.3: Create incentives for locally-owned food businesses to locate in the Near Eastside.
    • LISC: Create more start-up funding available to the Near Eastside
    • Assistance to buy property
    • Tax incentives?
    • City Council: NESCO, [Department of Metropolitan Development]
  • Action 5.4: Create a food incubator and curriculum that promotes youth empowerment and entrepreneurism.
    • LISC: Establish partnership with food organizations that have the capacity to support or host food incubators!
    • Collaborate with local schools and do this during school hours or a club?
    • Partner with schools
  • Action 5.5: Collaborate with the Indy Food Council and others to address food access issues
    • Indy Food Fund
    • I agree… create actions plan with neighbors
    • Interested
    • Indy Food Council (now called Indy Community Food Access Coalition)
  • Action 5.6: Overcome transportation barriers to food access by providing transit to markets, creating a mobile market, and/or creating a food ordering platform.
    • Rent one of the Boner buses specifically for this purpose
    • Food delivery. Create online form that individuals can “shop” for items.
    • Find more places that will let Westminster Neighborhood Services do indoor popup pantry in winter
    • Increase rideshare collaboration: Lyft, Uber, Doordash
      • Lyft Indy Program
    • Fold up walking carts or wagons neighbors can use to walk with groceries
    • Organizations volunteer their buses to pick up neighbors on pantry days
    • Interested
  • Action 5.7: Collaborate with existing organizations and their outreach efforts to cohesively market and promote food resources in the community.
    • City of Indianapolis Division of Community Nutrition & Food Policy
    • Share these outreach efforts with the school pantries, where families in need are already attending.
    • Set up ongoing Zoom calls for partners to collaborate and share resources.
  • Action 5.8: Invest in local food production.
    • Westmin kids go to Growing Places during summer to help and learn
    • Possible partnership with Keeping Indianapolis Beautiful?
    • Have ethnic food restaurant owners move into the neighborhoods
    • LISC: Provide more funding and capacity building support to urban farms and community gardens
    • Provide all necessary items to convert vacant lots into gardens: rented tiller, posts, seeds, nets, watering cans, etc.
  • Action 5.9: Encourage farmers markets to donate food surplus to food pantries
    • Second Helpings!
    • Partner with Meals on Wheels, already have logistics set up for pick up/delivery
    • Employ an incentive method that encourages farmers to donate
    • Andrews – gleaning
  • Action 5.11: Host community meals
    • Are other cuisines being offered tailored to the Hispanic community?
    • Westminster Community Center (2325 E. New York)
      • Tuesdays at Noon: Free Lunch and Bible Study
      • Wednesdays at 6 PM: Free Dinner and Music and Message
    • Action 5.12: Create employer-sponsored incentives rewarding healthy food choices or subsidies for healthy food such as Wholesome Wave
      • Fresh Bucks at farmers markets and Safeway – SNAP matching program
      • Produce prescription through Marion County Public Health Department. Patients take classes and get money to spend on fresh produce.
      • Create a point system that incentivizes health food choices with additional food items
      • We like it! Taxes, match dollars, social media support
        • I agree, but I don’t know how
      • Give grant money to organizations running these healthy food programs
    • Action 5.13: Provide support for urban farms, community gardens, and container gardens and connect them to IUPUI free-lead testing and Spades Park Library’s seed library.
      • Allocate some of the garden spaces at the Legacy Center for growing food for neighbors.
      • Partner with Growing Places Indy?
      • LISC: Increase Near Eastside funding to urban farms and gardens
      • Purdue Extension gardening education