We at Real Food Media know that to turn our collective energy into people power, we need to organize. From community gardens to town halls across the country and beyond, nothing is more powerful than people coming together to break bread, share ideas, and create the kind of world we want to see.

Our organizing toolkits offer resources to help you bring your community together, spark impactful conversations, dig deeper, and take action. (Last updated Spring 2019)

If you believe a just, healthy, and environmentally sustainable world is possible: let’s get busy.  

TOOLKIT THEMES:

BUILDING POWER WITH FOOD WORKERS

TACKLING CLIMATE CHANGE THROUGH FOOD

WHAT YOU’LL FIND IN EACH TOOLKIT:

• Curated film reels you can watch or screen for a group on the people, places, and stories at the heart of each theme
• Guiding questions to facilitate reflection and discussion
• Engagement activities to turn your film screening into a community-building, action-oriented event
• Downloadable resources to share with your audience
• Ideas for ways to organize in your own community for food system change
• A glossary explaining key terms used in the toolkit
• Tips for individuals and organizations interested in hosting their own event around these themes

TOOLKITS ARE GEARED TOWARDS:

Individuals

• Who care about good food and want to dig deeper to understand how our food system works (or doesn’t work) and how food can be a starting point for building a better world.

Groups

• Food, health, labor, and climate activists who are eager to organize their communities around concrete campaigns and actions
• Students and educators looking for tools that combine learning with action, inside and outside of the classroom
• Faith-based groups interested in fostering support for healthy, just, and sustainable food systems
• Neighborhood associations and other local organizations looking for ways to strengthen community through informed engagement with food issues
• Offices, unions, and other workplace groups that want to facilitate conversation among co-workers about their place in the food system

Have something else in mind? The sky’s the limit! Toolkits include materials accessible to people from diverse backgrounds and levels of experience. Tell us about your group and let us know if we can help you get organized by contacting info@realfoodmedia.org. 

Header photo: Annette Bernhardt, Oakland Fast Food Strike, December 2014.

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On Tuesday afternoons, North Oakland’s Driver’s Plaza is a lively place. Neighbors gather to listen to music, play chess, hang out and share a meal. The chef is “Aunti” Frances Moore, a former Black Panther and founder of the Love Mission Self Help Hunger Program, which has been serving a weekly meal for much of the past decade. Those gathering at Driver’s are typical of “the old Oakland,” largely but not exclusively African American, and struggling to get by in this rapidly gentrifying city. Many are visibly disabled. Most are elders, though there are also younger adults and children ranging from elementary to high school-age. Some rent rooms nearby while others are homeless, crashing with friends or living in vehicles.

Aunti Frances shares the experiences of those dealing with food insecurity: “I have slept on that sidewalk. I’ve slept on the rooftops. I’ve slept in the campgrounds and the shelters,” she says, “Therefore, I know how to give. I know what you need.” What is needed, according to Aunti Frances, is a healthy, well-balanced meal and a place to spend time with your neighbors and friends. This builds a sense that “we’re in this together, and have to take care of each other.” Aunti Francis pays for much of the food with her SSI check, though there have also been donations from neighbors and even a small grant. More recently, through a partnership with Phat Beets Produce, she has also been able to incorporate locally-grown produce, and volunteers have planted fruit trees and tree collards in the plaza itself.

For the past eight years, Aunti Frances has rented an apartment a few blocks away. But the triplex where it’s located was sold to Natalia Morphy and her parents James and Alexandra Morphy in 2016. Oakland’s rent control laws limit how much landlords can raise the rent on existing tenants, and follow the tenants even when the building is sold. Median rents have skyrocketed in this gentrifying city, and can only be raised to market rates when tenants move out. So even though Aunti Frances pays her rent on time, the Morphys want her out. Aunti Frances was served eviction papers on November 19th. This is the Morphys’ third attempt to push her out. Rent control should make this impossible, but there are gaps in the legislation for unscrupulous landlords to exploit. If the eviction is successful, it is unlikely that Aunti Frances will be able to find other housing. She’ll either be forced out of the city, or into the streets.

In recent years,food justice activists have been reflecting on whether gentrification is an unintended consequence of their work. Detroit’s Patrick Crouch worries that urban agriculture “inevitably attracts young white people” while DC’s Brian Massey is “increasingly finding that our work is being associated with, and even coopted by, the forces that are driving extreme gentrification and displacement.” Phat Beets is no stranger to these debates. In 2012, a local realtor profiled their community garden and farmer’s market as evidence of North Oakland’s “revitalization,” and the ensuing controversy prompted them to more deeply connect with long-term residents, including Aunti Frances. Together, they have tried to insulate the Self Help Hunger Program from the threat of gentrification by forming alliances with neighbors. Bringing people together is one of the Self Help Hunger Program’s fundamental goals, and Aunti Frances’ warmth and generous spirit easily bridges divides between Black and white, rich and poor, and old residents and new.

So it’s no surprise that dozens of food justice, housing rights, and anti-racist organizations, as well as neighborhood residents, have come together to support Aunti Frances. To launch their eviction defense campaign, they are planning a rally this Sunday December 10th that will show the landlords the strength of Aunti Frances’ community support. They are also collecting signatures, accepting donations, and asking supporters to share Aunti Frances’ story.

Just as activists have increased access to healthy food and green spaces in underserved neighborhoods, long-term residents are being displaced. Sustainable and just food means supporting residents who face eviction as well as creating livable, green, and affordable communities.

Alison Alkon is co-editor of the book The New Food Activism, our December #realfoodreads selection. Anna interviews Alison and chapter authors Joann Lo and Tanya Kerssen in this month’s podcast episode. 

The post You Can’t Evict Community Power appeared first on Real Food Media.

January 30, 2017

RE: Nomination of Andrew Puzder as Secretary of Labor

Dear Senators:

Our organizations urge you to oppose the nomination of Andrew Puzder as Secretary of Labor. This nomination represents another in a string of Trump administration appointments that betrays the President-elect’s promise to improve the lives of working people.

As CEO of CKE Restaurants, which operates Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s, Puzder’s nomination to an agency charged with protecting working people is rife with conflicts of interest. Puzder’s company has faced numerous Department of Labor violations for failing to pay the minimum wage or overtime: Sixty percent of inspections of Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s restaurants found labor law violations and Puzder has opposed both raising the minimum wage and enforcement of overtime rules and mandatory sick leave. Puzder’s confirmation would ensure that the interests of the fast food industry—and its large meat and food industry suppliers—would prevail over the needs of hard-working people in the food system who face some of the highest rates of food insecurity due to low wages and poor working conditions.

Contrary to what Puzder and other corporate leaders at the National Restaurant Association say about good working conditions in the restaurant sector, the majority of restaurant workers are women and people of color, making as little as $2.13 per hour and rely on tips to survive. These workers face disproportionate rates of poverty, discrimination, and sexual harassment and deserve a Labor Secretary who believes that, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “All labor has dignity.” Instead, with the National Restaurant Association’s champion heading the Department of Labor, workers will have to rely on vocal opponents of labor regulations to protect their basic workplace rights.

On behalf of the many people and groups who are working for a better food system that provides nutritious food and livable wages and treats the land, farmers, and animals with respect, we the undersigned urge you to oppose the nomination of Andrew Puzder to Labor Secretary.

Puzder would be yet one more nominee working for the interests of big business over the interests of working people.

Signed:

ActionAid USA

African American Cultural Center (Us)

Agricultural Justice Project

Alliance for Fair Food

Beyond Pesticides

Black Community, Clergy and Labor Alliance (BCCLA)

Black Urban Growers

Brandworkers

Brighter Green

California Institute for Rural Studies

Center for Biological Diversity

Center for Food Safety

Center for Science in the Public Interest

Center for Urban Education for Sustainable Agriculture

Climate Justice Alliance

Coalition of Immokalee Workers

CoFED

Common Ground Community

Community Alliance for Global Justice

Community Food and Justice Coalition

Compassion in World Farming

Corporate Accountability International

Dakota Resource Council

Domestic Fair Trade Association

Earthjustice

El Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agricolas, The Farmworkers’ Support Committee

Family Farm Defenders

Farm Forward

Farmworker Association of Florida

Farmworker Justice

Food & Water Watch

Food Chain Workers Alliance

Food Democracy Now!

Food Empowerment Project

Food First

Food Shift

Food Tank

Foodstand

Foundation Earth

Friends of the Earth

GMO Inside

Grassroots Gardens WNY

Greater Grand Rapids Food Systems Council

Green America

HEAL Food Alliance

Health & Medicine Policy Research Group

Health Care Without Harm

Idle No More Duluth

Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy

International Labor Rights Forum

Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement

Just Food

Land Stewardship Project

Laundry Workers Center

Laurie M. Tisch Center for Food, Education & Policy, Teachers College, Columbia University

Lucid Food

Midwest Pesticide Action Center

MomsRising.org

National Association of Blacks in Criminal Justice

National Black Food & Justice Alliance

National Family Farm Coalition

National Young Farmers Coalition

Natural Resources Defense Council

NC Environmental Justice Network

New Mexico Public Health Association

Ninjas for Health

North American Climate,Conservation and Environment

Northeast Organic Farming Association of

New York

Northwest Arkansas Workers Justice Center

Nutiva

Organic Consumers Association

Other Worlds

People’s Climate Movement NY

People’s Grocery

Pesticide Action Network

Phat Beets Produce

Pioneer Valley Workers Center

Real Food Challenge

Real Food for Kids

Real Food Media

ROC United

RootDown LA

Roots of Change

Rural Coalition/Coalición Rural

Sacramento Food Policy Council

Slow Food California

Slow Food Chicago

Slow Food USA

Small Planet Institute

Soil Generation

South Agassiz Resource Council

Southern Christian Leadership Conference of Southern California

Springfield Food Policy Council

Student/Farmworker Alliance

Sustainable Agriculture of Louisville (SAL)

Toxic Taters

Treasure Valley Food Coalition

Union of Concerned Scientists

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

US Food Sovereignty Alliance

Warehouse Worker Resource Center

Warehouse Workers for Justice

WhyHunger

Workers’ Center of Central New York

Young Workers United

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