It’s a humbling when a vision finally takes wings.
Since 2012, the Sweet Potato Project has sought to educate youth in urban
agriculture as a pathway to entrepreneurism. In brief, we show them how to
plant food on vacant lots and how to market, brand and distribute food and food-based
products. One of our concerns is that we can only impact our students during
the summer months that they’re paid to work. After that many of our youth
return to lives of social and economic chaos. To engage and inspire these urban
pioneers year-round, we have to expand our mission into their environments to a
point where growing, packaging and distributing fresh food is a 24/7,
all-inclusive endeavor.
Well, six years later, I’m happy to report that
the partners and elements are in place to create a food-based economic engine
in North St. Louis. Several grassroots nonprofits, including the Sweet Potato
Project, have collaborated to make sure growing food and bringing it to market
is easier and do-able, particularly for low-income youth and adults. The North
City Food Hub includes former staffers of St. Louis University’s Nutrition
and Dietetics Department,
the Greater Ville Collaborative, Good Life Growing, Annie
Malone Children’s Home and HOSCO Food. This
summer, there will be a shared-use, commercial kitchen where anyone can develop
food-based products under the supervision of professional chefs. Additional
plans call for a café, fresh food market, home delivery food service, a
culinary certification program, and sessions designed to help residents lease
or own some of the vast vacant properties in the city.
The Sweet Potato Project’s role in this
collaborative is to bring as many youth and adults into the fold as possible. My
challenge is to convince ordinary people who’ve been locked out of development
in North St. Louis that we can reverse that trend. We have to convince those
committed to equity that the food movement is real, economic game-changer in
our neighborhoods, too. We have paint a powerful picture of massive inner-city farming
where land-owners grow the food and earn money from their yields of sweet
potatoes and other produce. That picture should include farmer’s markets in the
hood with spin-off businesses like bakeries, restaurants and bars that draw
people in and generate millions like the Tower Grove Farmer’s Market. The
vision must include a brand of food like Del Monte or Glory Foods that offers
packaged and canned foods from land-owners in North St. Louis. These products
must be of such quality that public schools, hotels, restaurants, public
institutions, and a broad array of consumers are thrilled to buy knowing that
they are supporting a movement of empowerment in North St. Louis.
Collaborations have been the key to current
momentum. To be truly successful, we must
get politicians, city leaders and influential individuals to adopt this vision.
We must encourage them to invest the same energy, creativity, and resources into
this community endeavor as they’ve gifted to wealthy developers and tony
neighborhoods for decades. Industrialization in St. Louis and across the nation
has been on the decline for the past 50 years. But, because everybody eats and
more and more people are turning to locally-grown food, there is a real
opportunity to change the course of decline in North St. Louis and beyond.
Shared-Use Kitchen |
Metro Food Bus |
The thing I love most about the Sweet Potato
Project is that it invites everyone and anyone to play a role in educating our
youth and developing North St. Louis. You can help build community gardens,
plant sweet potatoes, mentor young people, support the “brand” and, of course,
buy food and food products lavishly and consistently.
We invite anyone and everyone to join us. Bring us
your passions, skills, and talents to help us ensure that low-income youth and
adults have a chance at economic empowerment, too. Fresh food can be a fresh
start for long-neglected neighborhoods in our region and beyond. Please help us take full advantage of this
magic moment. Be a part of expanding and creating a food-based economic movement in North St.
Louis.
-
Sylvester
Brown, Jr. / Executive Director of the Sweet Potato Project
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