Earth's Table, Community Food Share help families in need find fresh produce

To address the food insecurity problem among its low-income students, Columbia University launched Swipes, a meal sharing app in which students with a surplus of “meal swipes” could donate them to students in need. But when that app struggled to function and roll out properly, Columbia looked downtown to New York University, where student Jon Chin launched a similarly purposed but more effectively designed app, Share Meals. So far, the app has enabled over a thousand meal donations, and is hoping to work with Columbia to share its code and expand its donor services.

Production agriculture has put many small town, local farmers out of business, changing the landscape of the communities they've been pushed out of. One town in Missouri is fighting against this by joining together to preserve the importance of local control by nurturing a tradition of canning tomatoes.

A community organization in Indiana called Cultivate "rescues" food from local caterers, hospitals, casinos, and businesses to then be packaged into take-home meals for students at Woodland Elementary School that come from food-insecure homes. Cultivate is in its second year of existence, has three staff and 400 volunteers, and hopes to expand beyond their pilot program to reach all 21 schools in the district.

Clarke County School District in Georgia has 21 public schools that all offer free meals to students, regardless of their financial needs. This is facilitated through a federally-funded program, so even though poverty rates are high in the area, local residents are not footing the bill. While there are still some challenges implementing the program, in general it is received well and allows students to focus on their work and well-being instead of being distracted by hunger.

As the novel coronavirus outbreak continues to spread, the San Antonio Food Bank is working with other organizations to get more food out into the community. Although volunteer turnout has decreased, the Texas food bank has partnered with groups like Pre-K 4 SA to hand out food to students and their families. Every day, the food bank says it is sending $500,000 worth of food into the community.

Diabetics require fresh food and produce to maintain their health, but doing so has become difficult during the pandemic, especially for people who are immunocomprised and therefore unable to frequently venture out to food banks. One food bank found a solution which involves bringing out food packages to cars so diabetics do not have to expose themselves to potential germs. This vulnerable population relies on their bi-weekly haul of fresh produce to stay healthy.

The Women’s Collective is a nonprofit that works with more than 10,000 subsistence farmers in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu to promote food security using millets, a crop resilient to drought and climate change. For Pavitra, one of those farmers, she began cultivating the ancient grains in 2015 and now has more than enough food to feed her family year-round. However, there’s a lack of public investment in millet production and machinery. And there’s no unified effort to create demand for millets: Some state governments lead the charge and in other states, it’s led by grassroots organizations.

The Ajo Center for Sustainable Agriculture has helped the town of Ajo in Arizona distribute affordable and nutrient-dense food to the community after the coronavirus pandemic created a significant financial strain on many families. Additional support has come from the town's participation in the Environmental Protection Agency's program Local Food, Local Places which "provides technical support and expertise to help towns leverage food systems to boost economic development."

Want to help fight food insecurity? There’s an app for that. Food Rescue Hero helps connect extra food with those who need it. Volunteers use the app to see if any food is available and when it is, they pickup and deliver the donation to a pre-approved recipient, all through the app.

Cornerstone Baptist Church is spearheading the redevelopment of Struggs’ Cornerstone Heights Neighborhood. In 2019, the church opened a laundromat and bike shop and last year the Cornerstone Community Kitchen began serving free hot meals to locals experiencing homelessness. The Church is soon launching a community market where local residents can access fresh, affordable food.