Bread for the City

Like many non-profits, Bread for the City has official mission and vision statements. Both the words and the conversations we have about them influence our culture, priorities, and way we structure our work.

A year ago, our Executive Board started a strategic planning project to set 3-year goals for the agency. As part of that process, we asked staff and clients to articulate their own missions and visions of Bread for the City. The results were interesting and inspiring.

In one activity, we asked members of our Client Advisory Board (CAB) to describe Bread for the City’s mission or purpose in their own words. Here’s what a few of them had to say:

To help the people, to give support to anyone that needs it in the neighborhood and outside the neighborhood.

Bread for the City’s mission is to empower people to be self-sufficient and self-sustaining in their endeavors in life.

To help those who are unable to help themselves by providing free medical services, referral services, social work services, legal services, and a pantry.

The mission is to help the whole person, in a comprehensive way, with everything under one roof. They build you back up, your self-esteem. It’s to empower the person to go on to other things.

When we put all of the responses together in a ‘word cloud’ (which displays the most commonly used words in proportion to their frequency), we came up with this:

In another meeting, we divided our staff into separate groups and asked them to each articulate their own vision for Bread for the City. Here’s the word cloud for their visions:

And here are some examples of those visions:

Bread for the City is a community-based resource that understands and responds to clients needs as well as empowers/enriches clients to improve their lives and strengthen their community.

We envision Bread for the City as a hub for a diverse and engaged community.  We use technology, space, and people to strengthen inter-connectedness and opportunities in the community.

Bread for the City will continue to expand its services to offer a full array of culturally relevant and competent services, and we will develop a community that helps clients achieve their maximum potential.

The mission of Bread for the City is to provide vulnerable residents of Washington, DC, with comprehensive services, including food, clothing, medical care, and legal and social services, in an atmosphere of dignity and respect. We recognize that all people share a common humanity, and that all are responsible to themselves and to society as a whole. Therefore, we promote the mutual collaboration of clients, volunteers, donors, staff, and other community partners to alleviate the suffering caused by poverty and to rectify the conditions that perpetuate it.

At Bread for the City, we share a vision of Washington, DC as a nurturing community where all residents have access to the basic material resources they need for survival and growth, and the prosperity of their social, emotional, and spiritual lives.

In honor of next week’s Good Hope Awards (here in our Northwest Center on October 6th — by the way, it’s not too late to rsvp!), we’ll be showcasing many of this year’s award-winning volunteers in blog posts that honor them for their amazing service to Bread for the City. This post honors Susan Birchlar of the West End Farmers Market for being our Fresh Food Partner of the Year.

From the very beginning of our Glean for the City program, West End Farmers’ Market has been right there with us. Over the past 2 and half seasons, the generous West End vendors have donated nearly 60,000 lbs. of fresh produce for our food pantries. They’ve saved us a small fortune, and ensured that our clients have access to the fresh, locally-sourced produce.

West End Farmers Market

Susan Birchlar, the market coordinator, approached us three years ago with the opportunity to glean with her. Little did we know that West End would become the back bone of our gleaning program. We have made the trip every weekend between May-October during the past couple years. And the farmers’ market vendors love it. They hate to see their produce wasted, so our gleaners have been welcomed with open arms.

Farming is a fickle business; crops can be lost and rain can cause cancellations of farm gleaning trips, but despite the weather, West End never closes (except for hurricanes!). West End ensures that we will have a wonderful variety of produce for our clients all summer long.

For a look at what motivates her to sustain this partnership, check out Susan’s recent blog post, “How does a farmers market affect a community?” in which she assesses the impact that a farmers market can have on dietary culture — especially markets that are engaged in efforts to connect low-income consumers with their produce. With concerted partnership between food system leaders like Susan and service organizations like Bread for the City, we can make a difference in the health of our communities!

Thank you, West End Farmers Market, for being our 2011 Fresh Food Partner! You helped make Glean for the City’s harvest season the most successful yet.

In honor of next week’s Good Hope Awards (next Thursday, October 6th at 6pm, in our Northwest Center — it's not too late to rsvp!), we’ll be showcasing many of this years award-winning volunteers in blog posts that honor them for their amazing service to Bread for the City. I’m very proud to kick off the series with a familiar face: Leonard Edwards, our Food Program Volunteer of the Year!

I met Leonard on the roof of Bread for the City, when I first started working here. A client turned volunteer and donor, Leonard helped me figure out what exactly needed to be done as we transformed the space from a roof into a garden — and his advice was very helpful, since my experience with gardening had previously been limited to killing mint plants. It turned out, Leonard had been involved with Bread for the City for some time (you can read Leonard’s story here) and has contributed in many ways to our programs.

Two staffers shared their Leonard stories with me:Our Garden Guy, Jeffrey Wankel, recently told me, “Leonard has been a true leader in our rooftop gardening efforts. He was on board from the beginning; and helped us out at our inaugural garden build day this past spring. Over the course of the summer, his presence has been a catalyst for thoughtful and enthusiastic discussion amongst our clients. Leonard’s curiosity during our gardening workshops is often infections; he is always looking to take the conversation to the next level. During one workshop, Leonard took a simple discussion of container gardening and turned it into a full on debate about genetically modified seeds and responsible agriculture practices.”

Our AmeriCorps volunteer, Tonya Hamilton, who runs our Health Resource Room and fitness program, Let’s Keep Moving, has also benefited from Leonard’s volunteer efforts. She shared her story with me as well.

“Leonard has been a tremendous volunteer in our Health Resource Room. He helps our clients navigate through the endless health websites and find relevant information to assist with their care. He volunteers his time to patiently work with medical clients to find real health solutions and understand their diagnosis. He has also really helped to motivate clients to join ‘Let’s Keep Moving,’ by showing his dramatic weight loss to date and his enthusiasm about getting healthy.”

So that is why Leonard is our Food Program Volunteer of the Year. He saw the link between food, nutrition, and health, and lent a hand to helping these programs work better together. In fact, his interest grew as his involvement grew, and he is now getting involved in our nutrition programming to further his education and pass along more knowledge to others. Thanks so much for all you do, Leonard. I look forward to working with you (and working out with you!) in the years to come.

Bread for the City has a new project in our Social Services department that has shown great signs of early success! Through the Housing Access Program, we help clients in need of safe and affordable housing conduct a coordinated application blitz of the District’s many housing properties that are subsidized by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). [Read more about this program here.] Quite a few of our clients have already received housing through the Housing Access Program, in far less time than we anticipated.

Here’s one of our success stories: his name is Robert Crawford.

“I’m a problem solver. People have problems, they come to me. I’m sort of a jack of all trades. And I’m constantly learning. I learn from the people who I help; then I transfer that knowledge to others.

“And that’s how I made my money. I had 3 groups of people: wealthy people who paid me a lot to take care of their place, working people who could pay me just enough, and then people in my neighborhood or friends of mine who maybe couldn’t pay but who I helped anyway. The first group ensured that I was able to work for the third. People would ask ‘how much do you charge,’ and I’d say, well that depends.”

Robert is getting on in age — he won’t say how old, but he says people think he’s in his 60s, and they’re wrong. He’s older. And aging has been impacting his ability to keep making ends meet.

“As recently as 2005, I had my own place. But rent was going up, more than 30% in a few years. I was struggling to pay it. Then my wife’s aunt was put in a nursing home. And she asked me to help take care of her while she was there. I was the only person she trusted. And I would do it. But it took a lot of time. I was losing my clients one by one.

“Eventually I lost my place. Gave all my stuff away and moved in with my son. I couldn’t stay with him for long though. I managed to stay here or there, in basements of houses where I did work. But fewer and fewer people were there for me. I needed a place of my own.

“I was on the bus, telling someone about my problems, and someone came up to us and said ‘Bread for the City can help you.’ And at first I didn’t pay that much mind, but I met several more people in similar situations and they said the same thing.

“So I came here and talked with Stacey. She helped me apply for 20 different places, all over the city. While I waited, she helped me get some food, and helped me sign up for food stamps, claim my Social Security benefits, enroll for health insurance, and get other good advice. I realized that I’d been spending money on things I didn’t need to be spending money on.

“With Stacey’s help, my housing search went well. I went to several senior living facilities, and at one place I had the chance to meet the assistant manager. So I went and introduced myself. He liked my handshake. We got to talking. He said they were looking for a good handyman. I said ‘I’m your guy.’ And I guess they believed me, because I got accepted in there real fast.

“Now I’m the Vice President of the housing association. I’m not a person to sit around and do nothing all day. So I’m starting to help plant flowers and bushes.

“Meanwhile, I’m still coming to Bread for the City for the medical clinic. And Stacey, I’ve gotta come say hi to her. She was the director of my move!”

When Robert told this story, Stacey interjected: “It was team work.”

“Well it got done,” said Robert. “That is the important thing.”

Last Friday was our third Free Farmers Market of the year, and our second at Bread for the City Southeast. And despite some serious rain, it was our biggest one yet!

In less than two wet hours, we gave away about 5500 pounds of pears, kale, watermelon, potatoes, and cabbage.

It also revealed tremendous need for more fresh produce in our community. People were very patient in the rain, willing to wait it out in order to have access to fresh produce. Hundreds of umbrellas stretched along the block.

Under the visage of our new mural (a fantastic achievement of Aniekan and Words Beats & Life, through the Murals DC initiative) it was a great community event.

As the line moved along, folks were treated to kale salad (prepared by Wendy Stuart, chef and DC coordinator of the upcoming Food Day) and apple-pear compote prepared by yours truly. All healthy, delicious, and affordable. We distributed hundreds of recipes along with these samples.

We also gave out lots of information about local affordable markets (including Dreaming Out Loud’s new AYA Market). I think this is one of the most important points of contact we make during these events: an opportunity to talk about how fresh food can be accessible and affordable, if you know where to look and how to take advantage of the deals like Double Value coupons.

(Read more about the efficacy of this kind of outreach in this blog post by our gleaning partner, Susan Birchler of the West End Farmers Market. Thanks Susan!)

We also had a visit from a class of students from Ketcham Elementary. The school had a food drive and they came to donate in person the food that was collected. Melissa Frazier, our Food Program Director, spoke to the children on the importance of

The big hero of this event was the Capital Area Food Bank. The Food Bank has seen this new initiative of ours and matched it in kind, through a special program funded by Kaiser Permanente, targeting large volumes of produce to food insecure neighborhoods east of the river.

Indeed, the most prominent feedback we received was about lamentably high produce prices at the grocery store. Folks asked us why we don’t do free markets every month. Well, maybe we should!

See the full set of photos here. Thanks to all our staff and volunteers!

Our Fall Newsletter is hitting mailboxes across town now. It’s got updates about our new Legal program for families in Child Support Court, and more. Check out the web-hosted version below!

On August 8th, I had the privilege of attending the 5th Annual Local Food Project Conference at Airlie, a sustainable conference center and agricultural site in Warrenton, Virginia.The title of this year’s conference was “From Stone Barns to Santa Cruz: The Role of Local Institutions in the Future of Local Food.” The event attracted farmers, food workers, researchers, and activists from as close by as the DC area, and as far away as Wyoming and California.

Airlie Conference center in 1960—an "island of thought."

A highlight of the keynote presentations came from Pat Allen and Christof Bernau of the Center for Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems (CASFS) at the University of California-Santa Cruz. For almost 45 years, CASFS has focused on exposing students and consumers to as wide a variety of produce as possible by growing crops from all over the world. CASFS also started Food What? an initiative to engage at-risk youth in farming and nutrition and develop their self-confidence.

I was struck by just how similar the goals of Bread for the City and other DC food institutions are to this student-run experimental farm nearly 3,000 miles away. Through our own nutrition, gleaning, and rooftop garden programs, Bread for the City has increased the exposure of our clients to the delights of a variety of fresh fruits and vegetables, in hope that they will enjoy eating these foods and include them as part of a healthy lifestyle. Education is a key part of these programs.

Like many other organizations, CASFS has struggled to incorporate low-income individuals into the local foods movement in a meaningful way. Organizers find that it is a challenge to schedule meetings at times and places where low-income groups can participate and feel comfortable. In the afternoon, the Farm to School panel offered some wisdom on this issue, as they have engaged food-insecure youth by transforming a familiar space into a learning environment: the school cafeteria. Since students are in line anyway, Farm to School coordinators have treated the line as a space to talk to students about the importance of local foods, and to foster participation in the movement.

At Bread for the City, we’ve implemented this approach by engaging clients in spaces that are accessible and welcoming to them: our medical waiting area, our food pantry, the health resource room, and of course our rooftop gardens.

After a great lunch that was sourced from Airlie’s Local Food Project garden and other Northern Virginia farms, it was time for me to present as part of the panel “Food Gardens at DC Institutions.”

I presented alongside Anna Ceccarini of the USDA People’s Garden, and Brenda Hanning from NIH. While many of the audience questions highlighted the challenges all three of our organizations have faced, there were also a lot of questions and excitement around the way Bread for the City has engaged clients and other community members in building, maintaining, and enjoying our rooftop space. The audience seemed particularly fascinated with the ability of all three gardens to reconnect DC-area residents who had grown up around food gardens and farms decades ago with their food source.

In the second to last session of the day, I got to hear Pat Allen from CASFS once again, in a participatory session called “Asking Tough Questions about Local Food Systems.” This session reiterated that poor people in food deserts aren’t just isolated from high quality food at grocery stores; they’re completely cut off from the food production process. City zoning laws and land uses allow fast food chains to proliferate, but don’t encourage spaces for low-income residents to grow food.

As a farmer from Fauquier County put it: How can we talk about healthy food, when KFC and McDonald’s are allowed, but small-scale farms trying to grow fresh vegetables aren’t?

As the discussion continued around this point of social justice, we came up with a list of goals for the local foods movement:

• Give farmers and food workers just compensation for the work they do in feeding society, and treat them with respect as professionals.
• Eliminate bureaucratic barriers to the distribution of local foods at institutions (schools, hospitals, etc.).
• Promote strong community economies in central cities that pride themselves on food production.
• Educate consumers on the food products at their purchase, and at the same time treat eating as a social and pleasurable activity for all.

Overall, the conference emphasized to me the necessity of community gardens and other urban agricultural spaces in increasing public exposure to food production and the variety of fresh foods available. While farmers and other growers have often worked in isolation from distributors and consumers, the living and working conditions of all these groups must be taken into account for the local foods movement to succeed at alleviating food insecurity.

How can the local foods movement work better for you? What can organizations such as Bread for the City do to improve access to locally grown foods? To join in the conversation, please contact Joni Podschun, Bread for the City’s advocacy coordinator, at jpodschun@breadforthecity.org

[UPDATE: You can listen to the show online here!]

This is exciting: We’ll be featured on the Kojo Nnamdi Show tomorrow (Wednesday) at 1pm, to talk about our Glean for the City program. You can listen at WAMU 88.5 FM, or stream it on the Kojo Show’s website.

Bread for the City’s nutrition consultant, Sharon Gruber, will speak with Kojo about how this program was born from our efforts to procure more fresh produce for our pantry.

Over the years, Glean for the City has grown to be one of our most popular and important initiatives, with 200 volunteers rescuing 30,000 pounds of fresh, free surplus produce from area farms and farmers markets in just this season alone. (That’s 20% more gleaned produce this year than last — so a total of 70% of all our pantry’s produce is now rescued for free!)

Thanks to the DC Primary Care Association, whose Community Health Corps initiative gave us the staff capacity to run Glean for the City.

Thanks to Katrina, the Eastern Market manager, and to the farmers she has helped us connect with – including Angora and Barbours Farms. With their support, we’re bringing in an extra 3,000 pounds of great, fresh produce from Eastern Market!

And thanks to the many donors who have helped us expand our staff capacity to take advantage of this great opportunity. Your support has helped us expand our pantry staff, purchase a new fridge, finance a new truck, and adapt in all kinds of ways to be as healthy and cost-effective as possible. As a result, thousands of our most vulnerable neighbors now have regular access to fresh, healthy produce. Thank you.

The Glean for the City donation page is here – give today, if you haven’t already!

Meanwhile, tune in to Kojo today at 1pm (or stream afterwards over the internet).

Last note: remember that we have launched a new food rescue initiative through Glean for the City, targeting apple and pear trees in the city. If you know of an apple or pear tree on your property or in your community that bears more fruit than gets eaten, let us know and we’ll make sure it gets harvested for our pantry! Contact our Glean for the City program at gleaning@breadforthecity.org with any offers or questions.

When we opened our rooftop garden in April, Bread for the City received lots of media attention — and the most exuberant of all came from Frank Asher, proprietor of OLD CITY green, a gardening supply store and community center just two blocks from our Northwest facility. Frank writes the Garden Fairey column in MidCity Magazine, and here’s what he said (see a PDF of the article here):

It took a village to create this. It will take the village to keep it going. And, the village created by this space is more than eager to have this magical rooftop to tend… OLD CITY green has your back!

Frank is a man of his word. Since our opening, OLD CITY green has provided Bread for the City with plants, soil, equipment, technical assistance and moral support. Even better: their staff has been providing regular workshop facilitation!

During one of our very first garden workshops, Sarah from OLD CITY green led us through a session on pest management. Clients and volunteers created organic, chemical-free pesticides using garden ingredients (garlic, basil and peppers), mixed in to a ‘tea’ that gets sprayed on plants.

We also created cardboard sticky traps using non-contaminant skin lotion. These traps only kill pests as a last resort, without endangering plants, soil, or human health. Lead garden volunteer Leonard Edwards recently blogged about the experience, saying: “Here we are conditioned to think that we have to go buy chemicals from the store and blast them all over the place, and it turns out we can do it easy, cheap, and chemical-free.”

Along with Decoy of the Albus Cavus artist collective, we created bird repelling devices: pie tins painted with angry faces.

In another workshop, Sarah gave a brief demonstration on potting plants, and then walked us through sustainable harvesting practices so that they will grow back throughout the season.

Last month, after a “Pesto Party” in which we made all kinds of lunchables from the plentiful basil in our garden, Jesse from OLD CITY green led a Q-and-A with 15 clients and volunteers. Many of our garden folk have started their own gardens, and they had a lot of questions about what’s in the ground soil and tap water in our urban environment. Jesse provided great tips so that they can ensure that their plants don’t absorb major pollutants from the area.

Jesse is in the Master Gardener program through the University of the District of Columbia, and he’ll be teaching in our youth garden and garden nutrition education program in the fall. “It’s so satisfying,” he says, “to be able to continue this learning with other people.”

(See the full set of photos from Jesse’s workshop here.)

OLD CITY green has been a key partner in the success of our gardens. And we need your help, too. Generous donations made this garden possible, and will sustain it into the future — you can make a monetary gift here!

Or you can help us get the material we need. We are always in need of the following:

1. Organic potting soil
2. Organic fertilizer
3. Sturdy pots in good condition
4. Seeds and Seedlings

We even have a registry open at OLD CITY green — you can go there to purchase any of this material for our gardens directly. While you’re there, you should pick up stuff for your own garden!

(If you have some already you’d like to share with us, please contact me directly at jwankel@breadforthecity.org.)

Our next workshop with OLD CITY green is on Saturday, September 24th. From 10-12am, we’ll learn about — and plant — our fall crops (including collards, broccoli, garlic, onions, lettuce, arugula, and kale — much of it generously donated by Leon Carrier of Plant Masters — thanks, Leon!). From 12-1pm, volunteer Sophie will provide a healthy Chinese cooking demonstration, and we’ll have lunch. Then from 1-3pm, we’ll take on some projects — like building a wall of giant potted bushes, planting some of our fall crops, constructing pallet planters, and more. Would you like to volunteer? Email me!