Seven years ago, the Sweet Potato Project was
founded with a mission to inspire young people to use food as an entry into entrepreneurism.
I discovered early on that training kids to grow, harvest, package and sell
food and food-based products is an admirable endeavor but the full
possibilities won’t be recognized unless the practices were mainstreamed in
their neighborhoods.
What does this mean? It means that community-wide
environments must be created where vacant land is available to low-income, youth
and adults; where systems are established that help ordinary people grow and bring
fresh food to market. This must include providing low cost or no cost training that
will help them professionally produce, package and distribute marketable, food-based
products in and outside their neighborhoods. It also means a collective adoption
of the idea that food, as an engine to economize, revitalize and stabilize their
neighborhoods.
This may seem like a tall order but, believe
it or not, it’s happening, albeit in a seemingly disjointed, unconnected and
fragile way.
Let me explain. A few years ago, a visionary by the name of Melvin
White introduced a bold idea to revitalize MLK Blvd from Wellston to East St.
Louis and across the country. Every year on Dr. King’s birthday, White’s plan
received national recognition. It was a cause celeb for Washington University
and Harvard graduate students. For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why black
aldermen along the MLK strip refused, for the most part, to get behind a plan that
seemed to be marketing gold.
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| Melvin White founder of Beloved Streets of America |
One of White’s most adamant opponents, 22nd Ward Alderman Jeffrey Boyd, endured public scrutiny for installing decorative lights along MLK Blvd. Strangely, reporter Elliot Davis on his FOX 2 News segment, “You Paid for It,” scrutinized the $1.2 million in tax dollars spent to install, as Davis put it, “fancy lights along abandoned, wrecked street.”
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| Elliot Davis interviews Aldermen Jeffrey Boyd about decorative lights on MLK Photo courtesy of FOX2 News |
I don’t understand why Davis made a big ta-do out of the issue. These
types of lights have been installed in several up and coming predominantly
white neighborhoods, like the Cherokee and Grove strips. The decorative lights along
MLK have brightened the area, adding a subtle layer of safety. I saw developmental
potential highlighted, especially the phenomenal work of Friendly Temple Church
and other mixed-income housing developments along MLK.
I didn’t hear much about Melvin White’s plan this year. My guess is that,
like so many other black visionaries, he became frustrated with the backwards
thinking, infighting and inaction among black politicos. If Boyd were big enough
to adopt White’s vision, the lights would have been part of a bigger, more
palatable economic development movement in North St. Louis.
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Malik Ahmed, president and CEO of Better Family Life, was joined by community partners on May 1 to announced revitalization efforts in four St. Louis neighborhoods: Photo By Wiley Price / Courtesy of the St. Louis American
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The project’s stated
goal is to reduce the number of abandoned and vacant buildings and lots in
North St. Louis and beautify neighborhoods with affordable houses. Malik Ahmed, BFL’s founder and chief
executive, said he wants the project to attract “millennials and others in the area.”
This is a powerful move but could’ve had an
even bigger impact if it was aligned with a collective, community-wide strategy
to improve one segment of town at a time. How many millennials could we attract
if we not only provided affordable housing but free land to grow food and subsidies
to open storefronts along Page and/or MLK Blvd? What an innovative way to bring
in young people who are truly vested in one designated area of revitalization.
I could get into the recent rifts between newly
elected “progressive” white aldermen and a few elected black aldermen but that
will be a topic for another commentary. I mention it here because, at some
point, we must challenge these politicians to get past their beefs and enact
the same sort of incentives in North St. Louis that’s been used to boost the
Central Corridor, the Central West End, the Cortex District and other already
wealthy white neighborhoods.
Here, I want
to stay focused on the positives that can lead to real, healthy and lucrative
development in long-ignored black neighborhoods. As I’ve stated many, many
times, food can be that economic motivator that replaces lost industries in
urban areas.
. Let’s be
real, everybody eats. Growing, packaging and distributing fresh food and food-based
products to consumers, public schools, grocery and convenience stores and
public institutions can be a huge boom for low-income people. What dreams may
come if everybody-consumers, restaurants, bakeries and more-all bought food that
was professionally grown in North St. Louis? What would be the job and small
business increase if a line of food, like Del Monte, was manufactured and
distributed from the inner city?
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| The North City Food Hub partners include the Sweet Potato Project, Good Life Growing Inc., Hosco Foods, St. Louis University, Annie Malone Children & Family Services and City Market Cooperative. |
I’m ecstatic to report that the Sweet Potato
Project has joined a group of local food entities that have come together to turn
these challenges into possibilities. The “North St. Louis Food Hub (NCFH)” is
dedicated to creating “local food systems” specifically in North St. Louis. This
summer, it will offer classes in land ownership, urban agriculture and culinary
skills. Technical assistance will also be offered to help people develop
business and marketing plans and become certified in “Good Agricultural Practices
(GAP).”
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| Good Life Growing, LLC is a member of the North City Food Hub Photo by Wiley Price / Courtesy of the St. Louis American |
NCFH will open its “shared-use kitchen” in
the Greater Ville area in a couple weeks. This is where our students will turn
their produce into products. It’s also where anyone can develop food products under
the guidance of trained chefs (for a small hourly fee) and even earn “Food
Safety” certificates. NCFH will also host classes to show people how, what and
when to grow. It has partnered with or established places where urban farmers can
sell their produce.
I’m a naively optimistic, big-picture kinda
guy. Despite the seeming disconnect, division and political stagnation, something
powerful is percolating in North St. Louis. The challenge is to pull these
things together and present them in an empowering, collective narrative. Be it on
MLK Blvd., or Page Ave., the Natural Bridge strip or somewhere near O’Fallon
Park; black folk must choose and focus on one neighborhood. Then we can replicate
the model in another neighborhood and another and so on and so forth. Because
St. Louis has invested in white neighborhoods for the past 20 years, we already
know that tax incentives and other government incentives can be used to improve
black neighborhoods and spur small business growth.
The local food movement is spreading across
the country. Those with the means and resources have been capitalizing off this
for years. St. Charles developer, Paul Mckee, has already secured federal funds
to grow, market and distribute fresh food near the looming
NGA site. Many in the growing food market see African Americans as consumers
and benefactors of fresh food. The NCFH plan, for example, seeks to empower
them as entrepreneurs and landowners.
The first step, however, is to get black
people to buy into the possibilities of “doing for self” with a little
government help. For me, with initiatives such as NCFH, I have a way to immediately
put land in the hands of young entrepreneurs so they, too, can economically benefit
from fresh produce. I see a viable pathway to get other millennials and
low-income residents activated and engaged in land and community ownership. Growing
and selling food and food-based products is a sound way to monetarily incentivize
community development.
Let’s challenge our young and show them a workable
way to put action behind their passions. Let us put aside our petty political differences
and push an unique 21st Century agenda. Let us take a refreshing,
collective approach to building affordable homes, land ownership, innovative entrepreneurism
and neighborhood revitalization through the growing, packaging and distribution
of food. After all, everybody eats!
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The North City Food
Hub will hold its grand opening celebration on June 28th at
or Alayna Sibert / Operations manager at 314-954-7090
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