Supporting local farmers is how we feed our community. The Food Dignity movement is built to do exactly that.
It All Starts With the Farmers
Farm Stands for Everyone
Fresh produce from local farms, right in your neighborhood. Our farm stands are open to everyone. Take what you need and leave what you can in the envelope. No questions, no awkwardness. Local farmers, fresh food, good neighbors. That's the idea.
Growing the Next Generation
Our student-led local food hub gives young people real experience running a real food system operation. We call it the Connect Program. Students work directly with local farmers, move fresh produce through to the community, and learn firsthand what it takes to keep a local food system going. It's one of the most hopeful things we do.
When it is Urgent, We Move
When a crisis hits or a community needs spikes, Food Dignity shows up. We leverage our farmer network, our volunteers, and our distribution infrastructure to get food where it's needed fast. Sometimes that's fresh local produce. Sometimes it's buying up an oversupply of frozen chicken and getting it out the door. Whatever it takes, we figure it out.
What would this look like in your community?
What Food Dignity has built in Northeastern Pennsylvania didn't come from a textbook. It came from years of relationships, trial and error, and a deep belief that every community deserves a food system that works for them.
There are plenty of food banks. What most communities don't have is a food system that connects local farmers to local people who need food, keeps money in the region, and grows stronger over time.
That's what we set out to build.
Through food systems consulting, Clancy Harrison, Food Dignity's founder and a registered dietitian, works with localities and organizations across the country who are ready to build something better than a food bank. Not by handing them a template, but by helping them figure out what their version looks like.
Every region is different. Every community has its own farmers, its own needs, its own starting point.
Clancy has already made the mistakes, learned the lessons, and built something that works and adapts. That experience is yours to draw on.
That's where the real community-changing work begins.
If you're ready to start building, we'd love to talk.
The food system by the numbers!
0%
Americans who couldn't afford food without their next paycheck
0B
Pounds of food wasted in America every year
0%
American farms operating as small family farms
0%
Farmers who worry about the higher cost of everything put into their farming pursuits
Our Work
Incubating Ideas
In collaboration with community leaders, business execs, and nonprofit directors, we uncover innovative solutions for community food systems, nonprofits, and corporations to create resilient, local food systems.
Creating New Opportunities for Farmers
We bridge the gap between local communities and local farmers, fostering a resilient food system that promotes sustainable economic growth while ensuring nutritional security for all.
Developing Leaders
We harness the passion of today’s generation of young food and farming advocates and help them take the fight to their communities, focusing on building alliances and changing attitudes.
Growing a Movement
We know that change starts with a mindset shift, but must be followed up with real action, so we nurture strong leadership, raise funding, and cultivate powerful but compassionate follow-through.
Watch our short film (30-min)!
Food Dignity supports and honors everyone’s right to nourishing food at all times. It fosters a sense of pride in oneself while asking for help during a difficult time—and works to eradicates the shame associated with food inequity.
Food Dignity breaks through the barriers associated with local food access. It shapes food empathy and new food systems in our culture so that people who need help are supported, honored, validated, and respected during a difficult time.
Food Dignity begins with us.
How does Food Dignity® support small farmers?
Small family-owned farms are closing at an alarming rate. Many can’t participate in hunger relief food programs, and when they do, they’re often pressured to donate their produce. This practice, called "soldier farming," undermines the livelihoods of those who sustain our food system.
A farmer's surplus should be a chance to create new sales opportunities, not an excuse to exploit their hard work. We support local farmers, build a resilient food economy, and ensure healthy food for all while strengthening our communities.
Hear from Pennsylvania Farmers
Twofold Farm and Studio Jordan Delzell and Jay Jadick
Food Dignity Project provided us a consistent and dependable market outlet, ensuring that all our food was bought and distributed each week and that we were fairly compensated for its full worth. This has allowed us as farmers, and first year farmers, to have dependable weekly income, allowing for us to focus less on marketing and distribution and more on farming, attending to quality of produce, pest management, building soil health, and long term planning for creating a viable business in the years to come.
Lenny Burger, Burger's Family Farm
Food Dignity has helped reduce food waste and income loss by helping move excess produce during times of overproduction. If ourselves and other local farmers didn’t have FD as an outlet for this excess produce we would not only lose money but also waste perfectly edible food by having to dispose of it.
Let’s Collaborate!
Are you a Northeast Pennsylvania organization and want to partner? Take our survey to get started.