Poughkeepsie Plenty*

Announcing Poughkeepsie Plenty* Community Food Forums

For a schedule of forums (which will be updated on an ongoing basis) and to register to participate, click here.

**What is Poughkeepsie Plenty*?**

Poughkeepsie Plenty* is a community collaboration working to ensure that all residents of the City of Poughkeepsie can secure nutritious food. We envision a great food system** in Poughkeepsie, with these results:

Our children are nourished as they learn and develop.
We feel good and stay well.
Our environment is healthy.
Our youth have opportunities.
Our economy is diverse and strong.
The types of food available are not limited by income level.
Food is at the center of enjoying and celebrating life.

Our first step was to complete a survey of residents to understand how Poughkeepsie’s food system works. We are still working on that. Our next step is to hold forums with groups all over the community to gather input, generate ideas, and prioritize opportunities for creating change.

** The term “food system” refers to all the processes entailed in feeding people. Our food system, by which food is produced, processed, distributed, consumed and disposed, is embedded in and shaped by our economic, political, social and environmental systems.

What are Community Food Forums?

A community food forum is a facilitated group process designed to identify community assets and to generate ideas for how we can build on our resources to ensure plenty of nourishing food for all residents. Forums are positive, engaging and fun. And food is provided!

Who holds them?

We are holding a series of twenty forums at a variety of venues that involve the perspectives of as many different organizatons, residents and stakeholders as possible. Examples of venues include churches, community rooms / centers and non-profit organizations.

What comes afterwards?

Community forums will culminate in a large, City-wide action planning forum in 2012 (date TBD) that will involve people from every forum. Starting with the ideas generated at the forums, the City-wide forum will be focused on setting priorities and creating an action plan for how food is sourced and made easily available to all Poughkeepsie residents.

How can I get involved?

Contact us at PoughkeepsiePlenty@farmproject.org or (845)473-1415 about any of the following or or to ask questions! We want to involve as many different people and groups as possible in this process.

RSVP to participate in the next forum - join with a group to share ideas about how we can all have convenient access to nutritious food and live in a hunger-free Poughkeepsie. The schedule of forums can be found here.
Contact us to help organize community forums - we need point persons to help convene one or more forums with a core group of people that we can invite others to join in. Point persons help schedule forums, line up venues, organize logistics, conduct outreach and handle RSVPs.
Recommend other groups to hold forums with. Are you active in a group or organization that can help us plan Poughkeepsie’s food future? What key community groups should we make sure to include? Do you know any individuals - residents or stakeholders - we should be sure to invite to a forum? We welcome your outreach advice!

What is Poughkeepsie Plenty*?

Poughkeepsie Plenty is a community collaboration working to ensure capacity for all residents of the City of Poughkeepsie to secure nutritious food. The goal of the project is to catalyze a revitalized urban food system centered on providing convenient access to nutritious food for all, serving as a means for building local capacity and sustaining human, neighborhood and community health.

What is Poughkeepsie Plenty* doing?

We are conducting a survey of residents to learn about the most pressing food issues in the City of Poughkeepsie. The survey asks questions about food affordability, access to grocery stores, hunger, food choices and nutrition. Survey results will describe how food systems operate and how residents access nutritious food, make decisions about what to eat and what constrains our choices in the City of Poughkeepsie. We hope to understand how location of residence and access to transport, level of income and means of payment, and cultural preferences and level of ease using different languages facilitate or hinder secure access to healthy food.
We are conducting a series of community forums to discuss survey results and envision with our neighbors how we can all have convenient access to nutritious food, what we would like to see our food system look like and what we can do to change it.
We are recruiting representatives to a Food Policy Council that will bring the survey and community forums together into a plan for a hunger-free city and will oversee an action agenda to implement the plan so we can live in a hunger-free Poughkeepsie.

How can I get involved?

We are seeking community food forum participants ~ Poughkeepsie residents and stakeholders ~ to share your ideas about how we can all have convenient access to nutritious food and live in a hunger-free Poughkeepsie. A community food forum is process facilitated with a group that identifies our community assets and generates ideas for how we can build on our resources to ensure plenty of nourishing food for all residents. Forums are positive, engaging and fun ~ and food is provided! We also need point persons to help organize community forums (venue, logistics, outreach, RSVPs).

To volunteer or for more information, contact: PoughkeepsiePlenty@farmproject.org or 845-473-1415.

Poughkeepsie teens and their families enjoy a fresh-cooked feast at the Poughkeepsie Farm Project.

What about the name “Poughkeepsie Plenty”?

The name Poughkeepsie Plenty refers to the widespread myth that says there is not enough food to go around. In reality, abundance, not scarcity, best describes our nation’s food supply. The real problem is poverty. Hunger is sometimes a hidden problem in the US, because it may look different here than images on TV from other countries. Hunger in the US may manifest as a choice to eat cheaper, less nutritious food; to choose between spending on food, medicine or heat; or to turn to stigmatized sources of emergency food. Poughkeepsie Plenty would like to get beyond food handouts as a solution to hunger, as this doesn’t solve the fundamental issues that prevent people from eating well.

Poughkeepsie Plenty is advancing a collective approach based on the belief that food should be distributed fairly, and with dignity, and that no one should live without enough nutritious food because of economic constraints or social inequalities. We envision a city where everyone has assured ability to obtain, in socially acceptable ways, enough nutritious food for an active, healthy life, through a system that maximizes community self-reliance, social justice and environmental well-being.

Who is collaborating?

Poughkeepsie Plenty is led by the Poughkeepsie Farm Project and supported by a number of partners. A Research Team includes representatives of Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County, Dutchess County Department of Health, Dutchess Outreach, Poughkeepsie Farm Project and Vassar College. The Research Team is part of a larger Advisory Team that also supports the implementation of the project. Advisors are stakeholders from other agencies, city and county government, local businesses and individuals concerned with secure access to nutritious food in Poughkeepsie. Currently, advisors are serving who represent the City of Poughkeepsie, Community Voices Heard, the Dutchess County Department of Social Services, Hudson River Housing / Middle Main Revitalization and Nubian Directions. Poughkeepsie Plenty was one of ten community projects in the country selected by the USDA to receive a two-year grant to support assessment, planning and community mobilization efforts. Poughkeepsie Plenty has also received financial support from the United Way of Dutchess County.

How did this start?

Poughkeepsie Plenty began in the fall of 2009 with the idea of conducting a Community Food Assessment (CFA), which is “a powerful way to tell the story of what is happening with food in a community, and to mobilize efforts to improve the food system. Through such assessments, diverse stakeholders work together to research their local food system, publicize their findings, and implement changes based on their findings (Community Food Security Coalition).” The collaborators were motivated in this effort by the shared sense that, in the City of Poughkeepsie, food and/or nutritional insecurity is an issue for too many residents. At the same time, we recognized that we, as a community, have strengths, resources and potential to change this.

What Poughkeepsie strengths and challenges does this project respond to?

Experienced and knowledgeable collaborators who are aware of food insecurity (lack access by all people at all times to enough nutritious food for an active, healthy life) and are committed to ending it
Growing cultural and ethnic diversity that may include cultural food traditions that value incorporating nutritious, seasonal produce
A community that is organizing~ Middle Main Revitalization and other groups are working to identify and build on our community’s strengths for positive change
Some vibrant sources of fresh local food, including a downtown community garden, farmers’ market where purchases can be made using public assistance programs and a 10-acre vegetable farm within city limits that operates a large CSA with subsidized shares for low-income families and a program that channels donations of significant quantities of fresh, quality produce to partners in the city’s emergency food system that have prioritized incorporating nutritious produce into their programs
Thousands of acres of active farmland within 100 miles
Potential to involve residents in fostering new cycles of fresh food abundance
Concentrated economic and social disadvantage
A sometimes negative public image
An existing framework for participating in policy-making that may be out of step with the city’s growing diversity
An incomplete but troubling picture of food insecurity ~ growth in SNAP caseloads and emergency food program usage, inadequate availability and affordability of fresh produce in urban centers, increasing diet-related diseases (low income communities with poor food environments are at a greater risk for diet-related diseases)