Episode 215: Breaking the Food Barriers Through Community Partnership
About the Podcast
Today, Clancy speaks with Sophia Lenarz-Coy, the Executive Director of The Food Group. She spent 15 years in Minnesota working on food access and equity. You won’t want to miss their discussion about the role of farmers in fighting for food dignity, the misconceptions of people about the metrics of success for food banking, and how community partnerships can help break the barriers to food. Listen and enjoy the show!
About Sophia Lenarz-Coy
Sophia Lenarz-Coy is the Executive Director of The Food Group. She has worked in hunger relief her entire career and re-joined the Organization as director of programs and operations in 2018. Before that, she served as associate director at Hunger Solutions Minnesota, where she worked on federal and state public policy and expanded cross-sector partnerships with healthcare, policymakers, and farmers' markets.
Discussion Takeaways
- The Food Group is a nonprofit that looks at food equity in a variety of different ways. They have four core program areas: anti-hunger work, affordable grocery programs, supporting food shelves, and food advocacy.
- Growing food is quite expensive. To get the highest-quality food to our food shelf partners, it is simpler and straightforward to buy food from emerging farmers.
- Historically, the metric of success for food banking is the price per pound. In reality, price per pound will never be a metric for success.
- Minnesota has some of the worst racial disparities in the country. One can't do food work without talking about the race as well.
- Food dignity is how we show people we care about them, celebrating, bringing the community together, and building friendships.
#1 tip to improve access to healthy food
Food is magic—it’s how we show care, celebrate, and build community. Food dignity means centering that humanity and letting people define it for themselves.
Each week on the Food Dignity® Podcast, the Food Dignity® Movement’s Clancy Harrison hosts a wide variety of hunger experts and other people making changes on the frontlines. Join us as we dive deep into conversations that will change the way you think about food insecurity.
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