East New York Farms of has been named the winner of the 2018 Community Food Funders Champions Award! Seven funders in the CFF network, plus the 2017 winner Leah Penniman of Soul Fire Farm, comprised the selection committee. East New York Farms! was chosen in recognition of their food production and food access programming, indigenous leadership, youth engagement, and waste reduction practices; all which represent the triple bottom line approach to food systems change.
This year CFF is excited to be hosting our 6th Annual Gathering! Please join us to celebrate accomplishments from the past year and hear from your colleagues about different strategies being used to impact our regional food system, as well as celebrate this year's CFF Champions Award recipient! Whether your focus is on nutrition or hunger, food chain workers or farmland preservation, emergency food or food waste, we all have a part to play in creating the just food system that everyone deserves. We encourage your attendance whether you're a long-time CFF member or just entering the field of food systems change.
Join us on May 16th when Leah Penniman, Co-Director of Soul Fire Farm, will lead us in a data-rich, heart-centered, and hopeful conversation where we will generate concrete next steps toward our collective vision of a just and sustainable food system. Together we will explore how to make our organizational structures and grantmaking procedures more equitable and accountable to communities of color. Everyone will leave with a tangible and feasible action plan.
CFF is working with Sustainable Agriculture and Food System Funders (SAFSF) and the Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Working Group (NESAWG) to ensure the presence of 'good food' advocates at the annual meetings convening the heads of state departments of agriculture. The following letter was shared with the wider CFF network on behalf of Christine James, Executive Director of the John Merck Fund.
On February 1st, CFF partnered with Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders (SAFSF) to host an event titled Northeast Food Movement Organizing. Twenty participants gathered in-person and online to hear about new initiatives and opportunities to engage the leaders of state agriculture departments and help build a regional coalition of non-profits at the same time.
Join Community Food Funders and Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Funders (SAFSF) for a discussion on the role philanthropy can play in working with our state policymakers in supporting the good food systems work of our grantees. We will hear from SAFSF Executive Director Virginia Clarke who has spearheaded the effort to sponsor the annual NASDA meetings and send a local cohort of food systems advocates to each meeting since 2014. We will also hear a debrief on the 2017 NEASDA meeting from a group of advocates who attended under CFF sponsorship, including NESAWG Executive Director Tracy Lerman.
On October 4, CFF partnered with WhyHunger and Philanthropy New York to host a meeting titled Big Hunger about the new book by Andy Fisher, Big Hunger The Unholy Alliance Between Corporate America And Anti-Hunger Groups. Following a presentation about his research and findings, Andy was joined on a panel by Liz Schalet of Bed Stuy Campaign Against Hunger and filmmaker Lori Silverbush. The panel was moderated by Alison Cohen of WhyHunger. You can find a video recording of the briefing below.
On September 13th, CFF and Philanthropy New York hosted a day-long Food Distribution and Infrastructure Tour of the South Bronx to learn about some of the current and future food distribution systems utilized in NYC, as well as other infrastructure projects and small-scale supply chain models. Thirty-five funders participated in the bus tour that included four stops and seven organizations working in the Hunts Point and Bronx River sections of the South Bronx.
Join us on October 4th for a discussion with Andy Fisher about his research and findings, and hear a response from a panel of emergency food practitioners and academics.
Last summer CFF organized a tour of the South Bronx to visit organizations working on urban agriculture and food access projects. This tour will focus on food distribution and infrastructure, from large regional-scale developments to creative edible landscaping and community-based supply chain projects
