I really appreciate Kyle Brown’s use of the term “participatory appraisal processes” and sovereignity in his post. That term helps me to articulate my responses to Kathleen Brandt’s prompts.
My motivation for this work came from , I believe basically the same place as Kyle’s. I live in this community, my children have grown up here, and i have seen first hand the challenges and assets of the local food system. I had never lived any place before where I saw peers of my children who were hungry. I am fortunate enough that my professional work at the Harward Center at Bates College aligns so well with my personal passions. I was approached about five years ago by a former Bates student, Kirsten Walter, who had, as her senior thesis, started some local gardens in downtown Lewiston, Maine. Her programs had grown, as had her professional responsibilities, so that she now directs the Nutrition Center of Maine. Kirsten was determined to address the root causes of food insecurity in our community and realized that there needed to be a substantive community food assessment to do so. In the meantime, the make up of Lewiston changed dramatically. Over the past ten years, a community of 30,000 people has been transformed by an influx of over 6,000 African refugees and immigrants, most of whom are Somali or Somali Bantu. The combination of these factors and Kirsten Walter’s unwavering passion and commitment to helping to create a food system (not always local) that meets the needs of all of us through accessibility, availability and affordability of healthy culturally appropriate foods has motivated me to engage with the process for the past four years.
In addition, I realized that a community food assessment would be a unique way to engage students and faculty across the curriculum in community based learning and research.
I did not have many expectations going into the process as I was not familiar with food systems analysis. There were a number of things that did surprise me, the most outstanding being how generous community members have been to engage in the process and come together with Bates students and faculty to address food systems issues. The other thing that surprised me was how complex our research was to become including such things as studying bus and snow plow routes to outline GIS mapping for access and availability and coming to understand, at least superficially, how the Somali culture impacts food issues.
One of the most interesting, to me, modes of engagement with the work has been working with what we have come to call our CARS; community action researchers. A number of community members including homeless, single parents, those dealing with issues of mental illness and addiction, and African refugees and immigrants, trained along with students to conduct and interpret research from focus groups. Other methods of research have included phone surveys, a community-wide “charrette” where we presented the research to over 100 community members to educate them about the issue, “analysis fests” where community and college members came together to reflect on the research and to make sure that it created a true picture of the community through the lens of food access, organizing “Good Food Gatherings” to present proposed ways to address these issues, and the creation of a Food Policy Council that will now review findings and suggestions and move forward with solutions. The goal has always been to make sure that the process was ethically conducted and truly community based.
Some unforeseen outcomes of the project have been how the process has already created change. The bus system was expanded both in hours and scope in response to community members and students petitioning so that people could get to a store after work and on weekends that offered healthy, varied and affordable food choices. Another outcome has been the growth in community capacity to conduct research. The skills that were learned by the community action researchers have been implemented on other, non-food related projects initiated by members of those communities engaged in the food assessment including a survey done by adults about services for those with addictions issues.
In terms of negative outcomes, as Kyle mentions, sustainability of the project is always an issue as much of the work is dependent on funding from outside sources and the principal investigators n the project are not college faculty but rather community members themselves. In addition, working to honor the role of various communities and individuals in addressing food systems issues take A LOT of time and energy.
catherine, 
valentine, and 
Brian are discussing. 
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