Browsing by Subject "Food Access"

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    Find It, Cook It, Save It: From Healthy Food Access to Food Hub and Food Recycling in Brooklyn Park
    (Resilient Communities Project (RCP), University of Minnesota, 2017) Priestly, Kevin; Lampe, Joe; Degerstrom, Andrew
    This project was completed as part of the 2016-2017 Resilient Communities Project (rcp.umn.edu) partnership with the City of Brooklyn Park. Many Brooklyn Park residents live in food deserts, areas where access to healthy and affordable food is limited. The city has also witnessed an increase in commercial food operations arising in residential homes, which can pose health risks to consumers and fire risks in residential areas from commercial-scale production in home kitchens. To address these issues, students in Dr. Fernando Burga’s Introduction to Site Planning course used geographic information systems analysis to identify areas of Brooklyn Park where residents have limited access to healthy foods, provided concept plans for a commercial-grade community kitchen where individuals would be able to safely prepare and package food products for sale to the public, and recommendations for an organics recycling and excess food donation program to reduce solid waste from both the proposed community kitchen and restaurants, retail establishments, and institutions that sell or prepare food. The students’ final report is available.
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    Northside Fresh: Evaluating the Effectiveness of a Food Access Coalition
    (Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs, 2013-05-09) Caulum, Libby; Outar, Priya; Shardlow, Josie; Thomas-Tielke, Kate; Tulpule, Girija
    Over the past four and a half years, the Northside Fresh coalition of organizations and individuals has worked to combat the lack of healthy food access in North Minneapolis, with the assistance of a five-year funding contract from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. The purpose of this report is to highlight and analyze the key events and characteristics that have contributed or hindered the effectiveness of Northside Fresh. An evaluative case study details the coalition’s history and then uses analysis based on the literature, document review, survey data and interviews to identify lessons learned and opportunities for the future. To better conceptualize these data, we created a framework, based on pre-existing research on interorganizational relationships, network governance, and collaborative advantage to examine the effectiveness of the coalition. We propose that there are three factors that support efficacy: alignment of partners’ motivations and visions, the actual contributions of the partners, and the extent of the networks that exist within the coalition. We then submit that these three factors are mediated by the context in which the coalition operates to further encourage or inhibit efficacy. We concluded that the motivations and visions were adequately aligned although the partners differed in their views of the coalition’s function. Member contributions to the coalition were consistent with the 5P model used by the coalition. Networks of individuals and organizations, strengthened through coalition participation, also contributed to coalition effectiveness. Some aspects of the context posed challenges, however. These include a culture of mistrust with funding agencies as well as a culture of competitiveness that affects the way in which agencies and people work together on the Northside. Within the coalition there has been significant staff turnover, confusion over roles and responsibilities, and concern regarding transparency. In addition, we discovered that conflict over the value of different kinds of expertise and over the ownership of coalition work detracted from Northside Fresh’s ability to achieve its goals. We propose strategies for turning these issues into opportunities by discussing differences openly, cross-training each other to build everyone’s capacity, and increasing the participation of community members and organizations within Northside Fresh.