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Scrolling the Feed Fayetteville website for the first time captured my attention and my heart. Misconceptions originally told me that Arkansas would fail to be a desirable place to live. An organization working to alleviate hunger, cultivating a local sustainable food network and ensuring that under-served low-income populations have access to high quality local food quickly trumped my assumption.
Ive longed to play in the dirt with children. To connect people with food that can change their minds and bodies. To nurture community gardens and gather people together to work toward the goal of ensuring every hungry belly becomes full. Full of healthy food, and full of knowledge that they too can be a part of the local food movement.
My name is Katie Rievert and I am the new program coordinator with Feed Fayetteville. Originally from the metro Detroit area, I went to college at Taylor University in Indiana. I completed my social work degree in May 2013 and worked at a local food pantry as a part of my senior practicum. I became increasingly passionate about providing healthy foods for the clients receiving food at the pantry throughout my time there.
This passion sparked 3 years ago when I had an internship in Detroit that provided housing in the midst of an intentional community of urban farmers. We had gardens brimming from every back yard. We took over nearby vacant lots with the help of neighborhood children. Chickens escaped from the backyard every once in a while, brining life to the street and giving porch dwellers great live entertainment. Since that summer in Detroit, Ive continued to learn about local and sustainable agriculture and hungered for ways to connect it with the food pantry clients Ive been fortunate to serve during my time in Indiana.
This is just one small part of what Feed Fayetteville does. There is market gleaning, the SNAP garden, Farm to Head Start gardens and so many other unique opportunities. I continue to be impressed by the community, the passion for supporting local agriculture and lowering food waste. I feel immensely lucky to be beginning this journey with Feed Fayetteville!

It’s springtime and the Fayetteville’s Farmer’s Market is back in full swing! We were so excited to see all the smiling faces on the Square on Saturday, meeting new friends and chatting with local farmers. This week also kicks off the beginning of market gleaning. Gleaning refers to the act of collecting excess produce from the farmer’s market in order to distribute it to those in need.

Last year, in partnership with Seeds That Feed, we were able to collect over 17,000 lbs of fresh produce donated by local farmers and gardeners.. After the farm fresh produce is collected, it is weighed, sorted and prepared for pick-up. Gleaned produce is distributed among local non-profits and churches that serve community meals or have pantries.

This year we are trying some new things to become more efficient in transportation and distribution of the produce. We are excited to be able to use our Community Food Hub, literally as a ‘hub,’ to during the washing, weighing and sorting of the produce. We are also becoming greener gleaners by reducing the amount of plastic bags used during the process.

It is our hope that our community will help support our farmers by purchasing more produce, both for your own consumption and for hunger relief efforts.If you would like to donate produce from your own home garden or produce purchased at the market, you can find our table by the Market Manager’s booth. We would love a visit from you! Together we can cultivate community food security!~

If you were in the vicinity of the Fayetteville Community Food Hub on S. Locust Ave. a little over a week ago you may have heard many echoing voices enthusiastically yelling “Fresh, rocks! Fresh, rocks!”  This is because on March 14^th more than 65 Sam’s Club Fresh Directors from across the country spent the afternoon working to revitalize Feed Fayetteville’s newly acquired building.  Sam’s Club Fresh Operations Directors are those who ensure that there is always fresh produce in stores.

During their time volunteering, we were able to build rain barrels, straw bale gardens and potato bins, as well as plant veggies, paint walls and give the Food Hub the TLC it has been needing.  If we learned anything about Sam’s Club Fresh Directors, it is that they don’t kid around when it comes to hard work.  We were amazed when they completed almost all of our planned projects in the first hour that they were there.

Amazingly, their positive attitudes, encouraging cheers and dedication did not wane as the workday went on. Unfortunately, this did not hold true for our sand, mulch and compost supply.  By 4pm, we were about a truckload worth of soil away from eight finished straw bale gardens, with no soil in sight. Unbeknownst to us, our power team of volunteers began to pass around a hat, all chipping in to buy the soil needed to finish the job.  We were so overwhelmed by their generosity and kindness and can honestly say that we would not have been able to do it without them.

This spring and summer, we look forward to spending time in our straw bale gardens, which we lovingly refer to as our ‘guerilla gardens.’  Because we are still establishing a master plan for building renovations and landscaping, straw bale gardens allow us a significant amount of space to grow food, with flexibility for future building.  Feed Fayetteville dreams of the day when we will be growing edibles on every available square foot of space at the Food Hub.

For now, we continue to be thankful for the hard work and dedication of passionate community members and people like the Sam’s Club volunteers who help us in our mission of alleviating hunger and creating community food security by cultivating a sustainable local food system.  Thank you Sam’s for helping to Feed Fayetteville!

The Boiled Down Juice (BDJ) has agreed to share some of their stories with the Feed Fayetteville blog. The Boiled Down Juice is an online magazine that is gathering space for budding conversations at the intersection of community-based traditions and holistic, democratic, place-based community action. Were based in Arkansas, but are growing to cover topics in the greater south and beyond. We aim to discuss big ideas with humble approaches.

A contributor to the BDJ is Acadia Roher is the author of this article for BDJ. She is a solutionary living and working in Little Rock and offers these reflections on the conference, highlighting the work of Malik Yakani and the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network.

The annual SSAWG (Southern Sustainable Agriculture Working Group) conference took place last weekend in Little Rock, Arkansas. A full three days of lectures, discussions, and dialog, the conference aims to “empower and inspire farmers, individuals, and communities in the South to create an agricultural system that is ecologically sound, economically viable, socially just, and humane.”

As a supporter of the Good Food Movement, but not a farmer, I found SSAWG to be welcoming, energetic, and diverse. While I soaked in a few details about soil science and post-harvest handling from my excited farmer friends between sessions, most of my attention during the conference was focused on learning about community food system infrastructure and anti-oppression work within the movement.

Malik Yakini from the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network stood out for his fearless challenge to the conference attendees. He used his powerful presence to impress upon an early Saturday morning crowd the message that growing food sustainably is not enough. Those engaged in the Good Food movement must simultaneously seek to end oppression of all kinds, especially white supremacy, if we are to move toward justice. I was so stirred by his plenary address that I made it a point to attend his later session on dismantling racism in the movement.

Though the content of “Combating the Myth of White Supremacy” was fascinating, it was the engaging style in which Mr. Yakini ran the session that stood out most.

Read the full article here.

Follow the Boiled Down Juice on Facebook.

Boiled Down Juice

The Boiled Down Juice (BDJ) has agreed to share some of their insights into food culture, food issues, community based research and Arkansas solutions to food insecurity. Boiled Down Juice has been a presence in the Arkansas online community for a number of years.

The Boiled Down Juice has provided readers with access to emerging research in food ways, as well as opportunities to participate in creating food secure communities and documenting those experiences.

Thanks to Boiled Down Juices Meredith Martin Moats for the opportunity to share their online magazine with the Feed Fayetteville blog. You will see periodic posts from BDJ on the Feed Fayetteville blog in the future so keep your eyes open.

Here is, in their own words, what the Boiled Down Juice is all about:

The Boiled Down Juice is gathering space for budding conversations at the intersection of community-based traditions and holistic, democratic, place-based community action. Were based in Arkansas, but are growing to cover topics in the greater south and beyond. We aim to discuss big ideas with humble approaches.

Thrown into the mix you’ll find posts about music, food, growing things and ideas, participatory research, what it means to call a place home, and the diverse ways humans express the art of daily life and engage in creative living.

To read more go here.

To connect with Boiled Down Juice on Facebook go here.

Denise and Hershey Garner purchased a building that is in the process of becoming the Feed Fayetteville Community Food Center. By creating a facility dedicated to healthy food access and support of the local foods economy, we will be better equipped to create lasting community food security. Ensuring that the local food system includes access to the under-served improves the health of local residents and reduces health disparities. By improving community health and supporting the local food economy, jobs are created which improve local economic development and lead to breaking the poverty cycle.

In 2013 we hope to begin renovation of this former church into an energy-efficient community food resource center that will house Feed Fayetteville, Edible Ozarkansas, and our community program partners. This space will facilitate a dynamic, sustainable food systems aggregation area wherein formal and informal food-based programs can share materials, create a community kitchen for food preparation, preservation and cooking classes, create a community meeting and garden education space both indoors and outdoors, and most importantly create efficiencies in our efforts by collaborating on mutual projects and being a central location accessible to all citizens. This building is located at 221 S Locust. Stay tuned for updates on this incredible project! Special thanks to all those involved in this project, especially Park Co Architects.

View from the parking lot at 221 S Locust, eventually this parking lot will be food production space.