Beyond Stories: Foodlink
This past Sunday, Nate talked about the parable of the Good Samaritan and posed this question: do we look out for the next person who needs mercy?
One way we can do this is by joining the fight against hunger and poverty, which is something that one of our Beyond partners, Foodlink, is actively engaged in. They do three main things: provide food assistance, create healthier communities, and drive change.
Providing Food Assistance
Foodlink provides food assistance through food banks, which are membership-based distribution centers that provide food to a network of nonprofit partnerships, and pop-up pantries, which bring healthy food to areas that lack access to typical food pantries. You can click here to see how they are addressing rural food insecurity.
Not every community has a grocery store easily accessible. For people without cars who have to walk their groceries home, having a curbside market can make all the difference in accessing good fresh food. Customers say, “Food is fresh. People are friendly. And it will save you money” and “Curbside staff seem like a family to me. They know our name. We like that”.
Creating Healthier Communities
To create healthier communities, Foodlink has several initiatives, such as the Curbside Market and Foodlink Family Farm. The Foodlink Family Farm, located near the Lyell-Otis and Edgerton neighborhoods, consists of a garden, commercial growing operation, and public play area. The garden is the most productive in Rochester, and the commercial growing operation includes an orchard and an apiary.
The Curbside Market is a mobile market truck bringing fresh, affordable produce into neighborhoods where food insecurity and affordability are problems at hand. They make it easy to use SNAP benefits to purchase food, and even a double-up bucks program to get SNAP credits for the next visit. They have a map of stops listed here, but a form can also be filled out to add a stop for an area that needs one. Another Northridge Beyond partner is 441 Ministries. There is a stop near their New City Cafe ministry, so you can stop for some fresh produce and have a nice cup of coffee afterward.
Foodlink Cafe c. 2021
Driving Change
While remedying short-term needs, Foodlink also hopes to drive change for the long term in fighting hunger and poverty. Two programs they do this through are Foodlink Community Cafe and their Career Fellowship Program. Interestingly, the cafe adopts a “pay it forward” model, where customers can not only pay for their meals but for those of the people in front of them. This ad helps describe what they do more specifically.
They also have a career fellowship program for people experiencing barriers to employment, getting them into a culinary career. The program lasts twelve months, with the first three including some more cursory tasks like getting a NYS Food Handler certification and learning culinary math. The later part of the program includes more intensive items like 1000 hours of on-the-job training, an externship, more necessary certifications, and a culminating public presentation of learning.
There are multiple ways to get involved with Foodlink:
