School is back! Whether you are a student, parent, teacher, or neighbor. If you're associated with Charlottesville City Schools, UVA, any of the private schools, or Albemarle County Schools. SCHOOL IS BACK! While we are excited for the return of in-person learning, we also acknowledge that the ferocity of COVID-19 is back as well. And we are wishing all  school folks a safe and healthy beginning of the new academic year!

Cultivate will mirror the COVID-19 policy adopted by local education institutions and supported by the Blue Ridge Health District regarding vaccinations, testing, masks, and social distancing. We love working alongside so many of you and are committed to healthy and safe interactions with students, volunteers, colleagues, and community members.

Take a Book Leave a Book mini schoolhouse library at the City of Promise Garden

Student Choice and Student Voice Come to Student Meals

With the summer coming to an end, and the school year beginning, our Healthy Schools Meals team is excited to continue all of the intense work the food justice interns put in place this summer. From conversations about how to solicit student feedback to brainstorming the best ways to amplify student needs for the school meals--one of our favorite and the most exciting activities was taste-tests with Carlton Jones, Nutrition Director at CCS. 

In the summer of 2020, the last cohort of youth interns created a book of 35 recipes that they wanted to see incorporated on the food line. After the students presented their ideas to Mr. Jones, he chose 12 recipes that he thought would be plausible for CCS to implement. He brought samples of the 12 recipes over the summer for the interns to taste and give feedback. And now we have an exciting announcement about those student-led taste tests: of those recipes many were given positive feedback and in turn are now scheduled to be highlighted on the food line starting in September. The meals will be labelled as "student choice" 

We are thrilled to find out how the youth rate the 27 student choice options on the breakfast and lunch menus. Check out the CCS high school menu to see the fruits of our interns' labor (pun very much intended)!

Food justice interns taste test recipes they suggested for school meals provided by Carlton Jones of the CCS Nutrition Department

Change is Gonna Come. Now. 

August has turned out to be a month of change for UAC, with new personnel coming onboard and new volunteers. We are fortunate to have Joanna Currey join the garden team. She has been working in the sixth street garden and recently helped plant several rows of fall greens. Joanna has a great view on food:

“Food has always been central to human life. I think it both reflects and creates culture, and it’s something everyone participates in. Access to good food is crucial to our holistic health as individuals and also as a society. Without it, we simply can’t thrive.”

We also reconnected with TeensGive, one of our favorite volunteer groups. We had our first Volunteer Saturday scheduled for the 14th, but were rained out by Central Virginia’s increasingly unpredictable weather. 

Piedmont Master Gardeners hosted a workshop on converting a lawn into a flower garden or vegetable bed. The workshop was hosted at the Center at Belvedere but included a field trip to the UAC garden at CATEC. Though a rain shower dampened the turnout, some of the hardier attendees came out to the CATEC garden to see the amazing transformation taking place in the two large plots that the Master Gardeners have been using as demonstration plots for soil building. As one deeply mulched plot gets shorter due to the mulch slowly breaking down, the second plot of buckwheat, a cover crop, grows taller and has been serving as an all-you-can-collect buffet of pollen for the honeybees who live at the CATEC garden site. 

The UAC Community Market Day at Crescent Halls, this month, was sublime. Residents enjoyed deep green collards and kale, bright red tomatoes, peaches, and mini-pears from Farmer Rich’s home orchard. A storm rolled in later, but the UAC crew and residents stayed safe and dry inside the breezeway where there was music playing against a backdrop of falling rain. At the South 1st Street Community Market Day, Farmer Michael brought samples of some of the world’s hottest chili peppers from his home garden. They included the Trinidad Scorpion, the Ghost Pepper, and the infamous Carolina Reaper. There were few takers. 

On August 28th, UAC will be partnering with Morven Farm to mill lumber for raised beds at the CATEC garden. There will be more about that in our next installment. 

Piedmont Master Gardeners at the CATEC garden

Advocacy in Action All August Long 

With the recent introduction of Bria Williams, Food Justice Network Program Director, Food Justice Network has been busy unpacking its advocacy efforts and accomplishments past, present and future throughout the month of August.

After concluding the 2021 Community Advocates program in July, Alfred Shirley, Youth Leadership & Food Justice Coordinator, and Michelle Gibson, Community Advocate, met with Erin O’Hare of C’ville Tomorrow to reflect on the Community Advocates Program and discuss its impact on our work.

Gabby Levet, FJN’s Food Equity Policy Advocate & Organizer spent much of August leading the present charge to gather and compile feedback from the FJN Team & Planning Team on Progress Measure Recommendations rooted in food equity. Food Justice Network is advocating for the inclusion of these equity-centered progress measures in the City’s Comprehensive Plan chapters to hold the City accountable to the community-driven food equity goals and strategies that are already represented in the plan proposal. Thanks to the thoughtful contributions of FJN Staff and Network Partners, we were able to provide several suggestions on monitoring proposed goals that are currently being reviewed for adoption by C’ville Plans Together.

Aligned with these efforts, FJN Staff is looking forward to meeting with City Deputy Managers and Department Heads in the near future to check-in on their Food Equity goals and implementation strategies and to strengthen relationships around the 6-plank FEI Policy Platform. Be sure to review the platform today to learn more about advancing food equity in Charlottesville!

Although the recent written public comment period for the Comprehensive Plan through Cville Plans Together ended on June 13th, you can still ENGAGE and sign on to SUPPORT these efforts:

• Check out our Comprehensive Plan Take Action Toolkit for the specific recommendations and ideas on how to engage. 
• Sign on to the Call for Action in support of the Food Equity Initiative Policy Platform
• Speak at the next Cville Plans Together meeting to let council know you care about food equity in the comprehensive plan

Together we can move Charlottesville from a foodie city to a food-E(quity) place to call home!

For more information or to join Food Justice Network full team meetings, contact Alfred Shirley at alfred@cultivatecharlottesville.org

Here are a few of the titles we are reading:

A Promise to Grow, Marc Boston Illustrated by Ariel Mendez

Fast food's equity problem: Black and Hispanic youth unfairly targeted by ads, Yasemin Nicola Sakay, Medical News Today

The Black Panther Party: A Food Justice Story, Garrett Broad, Huffington Post

A Promise to Grow book release with City of Promise and Virginia Humanities. Clockwise from top left: Author Marc Boston with his daughters;  Marc signs books; Marc and his wife Cultivate Board Chair Rachael Boston; Marc with partners from City of Promise, Virginia Humanities and Westhaven.

Michele Gibson and Alfred Shirley speak about community connections around residents' food security needs 

From all of us at Cultivate Charlottesville—a hearty thank you to the many new supporters that have pitched in to keep our work going to build food equity during COVID-19 and beyond.

At Cultivate Charlottesville we believe that working together to grow gardens, share food and power, and advocate for just systems cultivates a healthy community for all.