Know Your Food Project (KYFP)
"Taking Families from Nutrient Deficient to Nutrient Balanced Because Health is Wealth"
Know Your Food Project (KYFP), formerly known as the Farmer’s Outreach Project, is a national,
multi-functional, community-based organization with an emphasis on educating African
American, Latinx, and Indigenous communities about consumer, environmental, food, health,
and nutritional issues. We will educate youth and families about the importance of knowing your
food, while providing access to quality organic produce, and developing added value products.
We are an incubator or foundation for future health advocates, community leaders and
entrepreneurs. By utilizing the positive youth development model, we will begin to empower
youth to become influencers in their communities with the goal of eradicating the food system
from grower to consumption.
By providing a stable, sustainable, and accessible marketplace participants will engage in food
related projects which develop leadership, advocacy, and entrepreneurial skills. Examples of
these are the creation of mobile farmers markets, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA’s),
holiday food baskets, seasonal slow food events, etc. These will yield a source of income,
meaningful employment for communities and increase access to quality organic products.
Our national organization is based out of Massachusetts, New York, and Delaware. We currently
have land to develop in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Delaware. Existing partners are The
Wellstorm Inc. and the Southern Federation of Black Farmers
KYFP Youth Council
The Youth Council will be the foundation and leadership
program of the Know Your Food (KYF) project. We will initially recruit fifteen youth participants
for this council. The participants will be taking part in a fourteen workshop series that will
prepare them to be our consumer, environmental, health & food advocates. The young people
will determine our strategies and lead our initiatives, programs, enterprises and campaigns.
Community Bridge Fridges
In partnership with The Wellstorm Inc. this initiative will provide
emergency food support to vulnerable populations. This is a food pantry and mutual aid
initiative that is both helpful to but also supported by the local community. Residents can access
the available food but also add products in support of others. This is a decentralized approach to
dealing with food insecurity and deserts. It is also a way to reduce waste as well through
salvaging food through the donations that sustain the initiative
Healthy Hut Mobile Market
This will be a very important and critical step towards helping
youth and families gain access to quality and affordable fruits, vegetables, as well as added value
products both in person and in our on-line market. It will also assist in educating communities
about the importance of eating healthy by teaching people about food preparation and cooking.
This will support the community in being healthier and reversing some of the major illnesses
that plague our families such as hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. The way to
achieve that is to engage the community in their journey from being nutrient deficient to
nutrient balanced
Know Your Money/Mobility Mentoring
Poverty continues to be an ongoing issue in many
communities especially with marginalized groups. We can’t expect people to make better
consumer decisions without equipping them with the resources and skills to do so. With the
understanding that financial issues are one of the direct on-going causes of toxic stress in
vulnerable populations. We will implement a science and evidenced based approach called
Mobility Mentoring® to address some of these issues. This initiative would provide a Know Your
Food staff member and a trained financial coach who will provide step by step consultation on a
weekly basis. The goal will be to provide financial literacy with a plan for economic mobility.
These experts and mentoring partners will help clients build skills, get resources, and gain
healthier behaviors while achieving financial independence. Coaches go through a training
program that outlines best practices to this client centered approach. Additional components for
our financial literacy strategy will be to provide trainings, workshops, and literature to help
participants build up their skill set
Glean Team
In the U.S we currently have a huge food waste problem. Each year 108 Billion
pounds of food is wasted. That equates to about 130 billion meals and more than 408 billion
dollars lost in food thrown away each year. The Know Your Food project will work to help create
innovative youth and community programs to combat the abundance of food waste.
There are several factors that exacerbate the food waste issue. One, is that small farmers don’t
have the resources and/or staff to glean their gardens. This produce is generally wasted by those
who aren’t able to give it away, sell it, or compost it. The Glean Team will be made available to
family farms to do just that, to compost and/or create added value products with the produce.
Both the soil and the products will be monetized and sold as a source of income in order to
sustain the Know Your Food project.
a. Urban Gleaning - The Glean Team will also help to reduce waste in gardens within urban
centers. In our experience community gardens are tough for organizations and groups to
maintain. This creates additional food waste as well. The team will alleviate this by
gleaning those gardens who again don’t have the volunteer base to maintain and to
harvest. Food that is attained by the Urban Glean Team will be used if possible but some
communities produce will just be donated to local food pantries and senior centers in
the interest of reducing food deserts
KYFP Outreach/Street Team
The Know Your Food Outreach/Street team will be in
charge of disseminating the information regarding all of the products, services, and initiatives
that Know Your Food offers. They will be responsible for outreach campaigns, distributing and
collecting donor cards, promoting and connecting consumers with the app while assisting with
the membership process
Fundraising Team
Fundraising and development work is all about your network. Having a team
in place will ensure that Know Your Food is a sustainable model. Youth led year round projects
will be the foundation. Members will take our produce from growers and our Glean Team to sell
added value products. They will make baskets and possible gifts for all applicable holidays such
as Valentines and Mothers Day. A critical function of this team will be to support the
development and implementation of annual signature events and fundraisers. For example
youth will sell added value products such as organic hot sauces, condiments, holiday baskets,
etc. Events will be athletic tournaments, block parties, read-a-thons, etc.
Waste Reduction Team
The Waste Reduction Team (WRT) will pick up where the Glean Team
leaves off. According to the USDA an estimated 30 - 40% of the food supply goes to waste. We
continue to see increases in recyclables ending up in landfills. The WRT will address this issue by
repurposing, composting, and recycling. The team will help with the re-processing of that waste
to turn it into another source of income for KYF while providing a critical environmental need for
the community. The initial focus will be to connect with the hotels to take their trash and make
use of it. We will engage with our younger youth population to tap into this market. The next
step will be to set up a system where recyclables can be picked up and exchanged, the food can
be composted for the creation of soil. The money collected from these endeavors will support
the WRT employees and the KYF project
Youth Political Action Committee
The Know Your Food movement is fueled by
the energy of the young people who will be involved. Although our primary focus is to change
the food system and the way people consume and purchase food. A secondary fundamental goal
is to build community leaders. Sustainability for KYF will not only depend on the funding
strategies previously mentioned but also with our ability to support the future entrepreneurial
captains of industry. They will be program graduates that will continue to champion our efforts.
Youth who will be lifelong members of Know Your Food. One way that we will do this is by
creating the Youth Political Action Committee (YPAC). They will begin with learning leadership via
involvement in the political process. We want future organizers, politicians, campaign managers,
and lobbyists that will champion causes with common interest. Things that will benefit their
communities. It is critical that we involve ourselves in the most powerful tool associated with the
food system which is the Food Bill. A lot of battles will be won and lost based on the amount of
allies we have behind this cause and how funding is distributed.
YPAC members will learn to become organizers and lobbyists by involving themselves in battles
of their choosing. KYF will train them in basic organizing practices and civic involvement based
on what communities they live in. This will be achieved with hands-on training via organizing
efforts, campaigning, and voter engagement. Some ideas of campaigns that will be presented to
the youth will be State Composting Legislation, Special Treatment of Organic Foods, National
Organic Labeling, etc. Another basic function of the YPAC will be to support candidates who are
worthy and beneficial to our goals and mission
Know Hospitality/Next Generation of Hospitality Ambassadors
The program training for Youth
will be broken down into four separate cohorts with a term of nine weeks. The summer session
will be a duration of twelve weeks. Youth will engage in many areas from customer service/soft
skills, desk services, management, maintenance, housekeeping, landscaping, food and beverage.
Our mission is to give local youth job opportunities and introduce them to potential careers in
the hospitality field
Contact:
If you want to contact The WellStorm, Inc. please fill out the form on the right. The WellStorm, Inc. is the fiscal sponsor of the Know Your Food Project. To learn more about their work and how you can get involved, please contact knowyourfoodproject@gmail.com.