Intersections | Food Deserts | Season 3 | Episode 5

- [Announcer] Funding for this program is brought to you by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(gentle orchestral music) (people bantering) (gentle orchestral music) - Okay, my name is Shirley, and we're at Our Saviors Lutheran Church, which is across from Faith Haven Apartments, a senior living apartment building.

Beautiful view up there.

Love it, been there for over 13 years.

I do come every week.

I don't always get the box that includes the canned goods and everything, but I always come for the fresh fruits and vegetables and salad mixes of things.

It makes a big difference in what I can have to eat.

(gentle orchestral music) And so, having this available is just really, really, I'm really grateful for it.

Not only access, but the cost, because during this emergency time, we were getting extra food assistance with our EBT, and now that has been discontinued, and so I will now be getting $26 a month assistance, which isn't diddly when you think about it.

What can you buy for $26?

Not much.

Yeah, that's for the whole month, so without this food, myself and a lot of people that live here would not be eating very well.

I don't know any other options.

If I drove, it would be different.

You know, I could get to places like the Salvation Army or maybe even downtown or something, but I don't drive.

And because of my physical limitations, I can't ride the bus either, getting in and out of the bus is too much.

(laughs) (gentle orchestral music) - [Volunteer] Do you like pomegranate?

- I love those things.

- I have one for you.

- You do?

My gosh, yes.

That's the biggest one I've ever seen.

Thank you Fred.

- You're welcome.

- Wow!

There get that one.

- Having a meal is like that sense of double food security.

Like you always have a meal here and it's gonna be healthy.

I'm LeAnn Littlewolf.

I use she, her pronouns.

I'm the co-executive director for the American Indian Community Housing Organization, AICHO.

When we first heard that COVID 19 was gonna be coming to Minnesota, we were gathering all the information, all the health information and AICHO operates a 29 unit permanent supportive housing program called Gimaajii- mino- bimaadizimin.

And so we secured some emergency resources to be able to get food supplies.

So we started to package food boxes and supplies that people would need.

And then as that stay at home, got extended, we were also thinking about the wider community.

And so we were able to secure some funding in the summer of 2020 that we could use our space at Lewinii Market, which is right now waiting to be developed.

- My name is Dominic Jose Bisogno, I'm the food coordinator for AICHO here at the Lewinii Foods Market.

And today we did our distribution in which we give out about 200 sets of bags with different food and clean supplies to people for free just on the sidewalk.

And we do that every two weeks.

- Thank you.

- A large chunk, definitely live in the general area.

We do have people that come from other parts of Duluth, definitely a large chunk are in this sort of central part of Duluth.

- We're working on raising money for the construction, the renovation.

So we added some equipment, so some freezers and refrigerators, and then some shelving so that everything could be organized.

And we had some food inventory on hand because through our Indigenous First gift shop and through the gift shop, we had relationships with indigenous food producers.

So we were able to connect with them to buy inventory.

So when we did our food distribution, we really focused on culturally specific foods and access to those foods and then local.

And we were looking for really nutritious food.

So the highest quality food that we could find, and yeah, I think nutritious food is like, there's more focus on that now.

Whereas I think before there might have been a stigma about like, if you're gonna give out free food that you should cut your costs and give out like the most cost effective, which is not always the most nutritious food.

You know, it's a lot of highly processed foods.

I work within with native community.

Highly processed foods are not good for anyone, but they're, especially not good for us.

Our bodies and our body chemistry is not able to really handle that food.

And it's really linked to high rates of chronic disease with either heart disease or diabetes.

And that's something that we also have to start.

We have to work on changing that.

I think we can do that by the food that we offer.

I will say that we named it, we help each other.

People maybe weren't always aware of the number of people that were dying or in the hospital.

And I think that's the thing with COVID is that, like we're almost in denial to the severe consequences of it.

But I feel like our community has really felt it in the number we have lost people.

So we wanted everyone to be safe and we were all responsible for doing that, keeping each other safe.

I mean, just to tell you the story that when Gimaaji opened permanent supportive housing, there was no plans to really have a food program here.

There was 29 units and over 400 people applied for those units.

So being unsheltered and having housing instability is really overly represented in our community.

I watched, you know, households that had been staying at Gim a number of times, their kids were used to getting picked up on the school bus from Gim, be able to move into their own apartment and have that stability.

But what the staff found is that the kids were asking for snacks.

So there was this indication that people didn't maybe have all the food that they needed.

So we started a onsite pantry and so people can access like staples.

The breakfast items were put out in the morning.

So the kids and the parents come down, kids can eat, wait for the bus.

And then when they got back from school, there were healthy snacks waiting.

I mean, it's really a beautiful thing because one, the kids and the families learned about different foods.

Like I didn't know about herbs when I was growing up and I was lucky 'cause when I was in my late teens, I had a friend who was really into gourmet cooking, (laughs) who like taught me about herbs.

I was like the most like uncultured person in that sense.

And so to me now those are very natural.

But at that time, I had only grown up on processed foods and it was either we had deer meat and wild rice and fish or commodities or food shelf foods.

So a lot of macaroni and cheese, Hamburger Helper, Kool-Aid, I mean, that was my whole diet all the way from like a kid, all the way into like my mid twenties.

And then I had health issues and I had to start taking a look at like what I was eating.

(gentle orchestral music) - My grandma always talked about Mino M'shki-ki.

Good medicine and food is medicine, good food is medicine.

I'm David Wise.

And I'm here at Native Wise Farms on the Fond Du Lac Reservation.

My relatives lived here for many, many generations.

And so I have a long history in this area of what I call horticulture and interacting with nature's garden, where we find the noma, the berries, the medicinal herbs, the sap from the trees, my wife and I put up this high tunnel.

And then we started using the land.

It was just an old hay field for a long time.

And we decided to grow, a bigger garden and wanted to toy around with the idea of doing like a CSA.

And we ourselves just, you know, wasn't that much harder to grow extra.

And so that's how we kinda started.

My grandma and my mom and dad, you know, instilled growing our own food and me as a young kid.

I guess I just feel like it's important to do that.

We've developed a relationship with AICHO in Duluth and first nations.

I can't say enough good things about AICHO and the staff over there that help us be able to provide surplus food for the food giveaways and also helped us promote our CSA boxes.

So my wife does a weekly box in the summer and we have things in there ranging from heirloom vegetables to wild rice, smoked fresh white fish from Lake Superior that I smoke myself.

We do a maple glaze on there from the sugar bush.

We tap the trees.

And so I'm hoping to pass on these traditions to not only my younger family members, but also to the community so that we can maintain a good connection to our food sovereignty.

And so that not only will they know how to grow it, process it, but also have that instilled in them and how important that is for our health.

I mean, it's amazing, we're gifted in this area to have the clean soils, the clean water, you know, and the more we can have people realize that, we can protect it for future generations.

I think if we could do more small scale local, one thing it's healthier for the soil.

The other thing is it's low transportation costs.

Plus it's fresher.

You know, I encourage everyone to grow their own food.

It's a feeling of like self sufficiency and for us natives, you know, it's a sovereignty thing to be able to feed ourselves food that is good for us.

You know, we don't wanna eat commodities and depend on the government to feed us.

- Because of the cultural history, we have been disconnected from our foods.

So in some cases, it's a reestablishing that relationship and coming to eat those foods again.

So I'm like really excited about food systems and food sovereignty.

Because I think like, you know, I try to imagine like what a healthy community looks like and when we are connected to our food and we grow our food, it's like our physical health, but it's also like our spiritual health and our mental wellbeing and our balance and our connection.

It brings all of those pieces together.

(bright upbeat music) - My name is Evan flom and I'm the food access program manager over at Community Action Duluth and behind me is the mobile market that we have set up today in Lincoln park.

So we've been operating the mobile market since the beginning of 2021.

And that program came as a response to a lot of the food insecurity issues that we were seeing exacerbated throughout the pandemic.

But our program at Community Action Duluth has been working on food access issues for the past 10 plus years.

We have managed a couple of farmer's markets in the neighborhood and do a couple of programs for customers who shop with EBT both children and elders as well.

And all of the original food programming began through a variety of community health needs assessments that have been done by our agency and others actually every three years.

And almost every time we see issues of food insecurity or food access rise to the top when our participants fill out these assessments saying, what are the issues in their life that they would like to see addressed the most.

Issues of food insecurity hits our elders in the community oftentimes pretty hard.

And then we also do a lot of programming for anybody who is a participant of the Supplemental Nutrition Program SNAP, and they shop with EBT cards, formerly known as food stamps.

And so we see access to a lot of fresh foods.

A lot of healthy foods oftentimes be more difficult in neighborhoods with a higher density of SNAP participants.

- Today on this wonderfully rainy afternoon, we're inside here.

And I came to the mobile market here in Lincoln Park, which I do pretty much every month.

Usually I'm here to pick up produce for a week or two weeks and keep my grocery bills as cheap as possible.

I am on EBT, and this has been the best way to, you know, maintain my own mental health and physical health by getting produce and also keeping the finances as low as possible.

I do live up the hill in Duluth and there's a lot of food stores up there, but actually it's really convenient because I work down here in the neighborhood and it means that on my way home from work, I could pick up groceries and don't need to go up to one of the stores and compete with traffic up there.

These greens look really good.

It's way more affordable.

There's been times where I've accidentally ordered too much produce and I've had my fridge kinda stocked for a month or so.

And it probably still costs less than it would for even a week's worth of groceries at somewhere else.

They got 'em all.

(bright upbeat music) - In total the bill comes up to $8 and 78 cents.

(bell rings) - For about like 15 pounds of food.

(laughs) - So Lincoln Park, Morgan Park, Gary, a lot of these neighborhoods have sort of been seen as sort of hotspots for a while, as far as food insecurity goes, which is what our program is hoping to address.

If you break down some of the demographics and statistics by neighborhood too, we've often seen that issues of transportation are higher in neighborhoods where food insecurity is also a concern.

So, you know what that can look like on the ground is maybe somebody in Lincoln Park or somebody in Morgan Park, not owning a car and thus needing to take a bus to the closest grocery store, which if it's winter, if you have kids, if you have issues of mobility that makes it a lot harder to access that food.

(slow orchestral music) - So right now we're on a route the S one, which is today's grocery express route that brings folks from the DTC to the West Duluth Super One.

So we're gonna be heading along this corridor here, that's just coming out of Lincoln Park and into the Grand Central neighborhood here in Western Duluth.

And then we'll be arriving at Super One where a lot of folks along that corridor, this particular route kinda collects folks as they head this way and do some of their grocery shopping and meet some of their other needs.

Living in the twin ports.

I mean, we have some really challenging weather and a pretty spread out geography.

So there's neighborhoods and people without vehicles that are really kind of at a disadvantage when it comes to getting the things they need, be it groceries or really anything else.

So as we designed our new bus system and as with our current system, we really recognize that without a vehicle, there's a high chance that folks aren't getting access to the nutrition or food resources that we all need.

We really designed our routing to give frequency and span and more access to key locations.

I mean, we've added a ton of service and a ton of access for folks living in the Western part of Duluth to then access superiors grocery stores like Super One and Aldi and Walmart.

There's better frequency to the mall area and to grocery stores along and other food access areas along the corridor.

So looking at the reasons people travel and then finding meaningful solutions that provide that with the new system was really at the forefront of what we were doing.

(slow orchestral music) - I'm Judy.

- [Interviewer]} Could you introduce your child?

- This is Gushan.

That's a Bible name.

But I've lived in the hillside since 1985.

It's the walking up the block.

And now if they take that bus stop out, it's gonna be a six block walk trying to carry groceries.

And that is going to be hard.

Now, to and from the bus, especially now with winter, the circus aren't gonna be shoveled.

And then, you know, you got the cold, so it's gonna be really hard to get groceries.

I think, you know, anybody in this neighborhood, you know, if they're a senior, it's hard to get.

I mean, I've seen people on the bus, I just saw somebody else on the bus with a walker, balancing with their cain on the walker.

Really has to be nice weather, have to have enough energy and then, you know, try to think what you can get, what you can't get 'cause I have to carry it up the hill.

I know you're cold.

I'm sorry.

You should have put yourself.

When I go all the way up it takes an almost an hour to get up there up to the Super One over the hill, maybe 20 minutes by a car.

So I gotta really think what I wanna get and what can I carry.

And then the bus home.

And if I have any extra cash a cab, but then cabs are so hard to get, you might wait two hours, maybe three.

And that's not to me worth it.

I'm much rather try to bounce it on the walker.

There's gotta be a way that, you know, there can be maybe once a month, some kinda shuttle that people that are disabled or seniors can take.

And that would be nice to have some kind of shuttle.

Even if we just took it home, it'd be nice.

(orchestral music) - Someone called me (murmurs) To over represent the underrepresented, that's what I think I am charged with.

All right, so I am Salam Witherspoon.

I am a native to Duluth, a friend, a neighbor cousin, a aunt, community advocate.

I'm just me, a servant leader is what I call myself.

To who much is given much is required.

I am blessed, very blessed.

And I like to say, like, I kind of like fill the gaps, you know, wherever there's a need.

I kind of just, you know, offer my assistance.

As a child, I didn't recognize a lot of like oppression and system of racism.

I mean, my family was middle class.

My dad, you know, he brought a lot of people to Jesus Christ.

He was very well known.

And so I didn't deal with a lot of that stuff.

It wasn't even until probably my mid twenties that I actually traveled to Atlanta.

And the difference between the airport in Duluth and between the one in Atlanta was just a significant difference.

The culture that was represented in the airport, and like the things that you had access to.

It was just way different.

Come here and you just see hunting gear like empty space.

And I was like, wow!

But then that's when I started noticing like microaggressions and just filled under place, really.

Being in considering that I have been here all my life.

And so I was like, I could only imagined an outsider coming in to a place like this.

Coming from being like insulated and kind of sheltered as a child, like not really having to provide, I really didn't have responsibilities.

Once we became a mother, I had a lot of responsibilities that I wasn't prepared for.

My first apartment was like up six flights of stairs with no elevator.

It was just like a beat down apartment building.

And so to go, to like the, any store to do laundry, to do, you know, grocery shopping, whatever it was probably like a two day preparation, especially without transportation.

'Cause like it was almost impossible with two kids and it made me like, it isolated me and the help that I thought that I had you know, they were the ones that I thought that owed me, not owed me, but like, would I not be able to rely on you type of thing.

I had to get it myself.

So I just had to figure out ways and it was very hard and that's when I became more independent and like volunteering more of my time to the community and never wanting to hear anyone tell me no again.

So that was my push, hearing no.

Hearing, no pushed me to do great things.

(jazzy music) So getting to a bus stop in Duluth back then, you know, I remember we had to advocate for like the DTA to even shovel out, walkways where the bus stops were.

Those are all initiatives that, you know, were led by community members saying like, no, it's really hard.

Like, and you're walking down hills on ice and you get to a bus stop and you know, I had a stroller, I had a baby, you know, a carrier in my chest and I was pushing a stroller.

And so I would have to get on the bus and there's a yellow one on the bus.

And then the bus driver would say, you have to fold your show up before you can go back.

By the time I folded my show up, the bus is already driving, And so I was following with two kids and I was like, you've gotta be kidding me.

Like this can't be real.

It was hard.

My kids were at two different locations.

So I would take four buses just before I even got to work.

And then the same thing after work.

So my whole day was probably like six hours of just being on the bus.

It was just awful.

And I was like, something has to give.

I didn't like to just leave my house, just put it like that.

I was like, no, I'm not going anywhere.

It was almost easier to not, but then started hear that word no.

And you're like, nah, I gotta get up and do something.

And I think the policy of the strollers, a lot of the things that we just, they were super like open.

And then they just made a lot of changes.

Like even like the bus route, they even created a bus route that went directly to the grocery store.

So all those things through the years, like if you want something to happen and make it work, like coming with an idea and the power, like the people power to like really implement the change.

I put myself out there and I was more dependable and people started saying, hey, like, you know, she's a change maker.

They started investing in me.

My biggest thing was just not giving up.

And eventually like things just started.

Doors just started opening and programs started revolving and new initiatives, you know, came to the table and I was involved in everyone.

So it's possible.

Everything that you've ever heard that you could not do and immediately resisted.

(bright orchestral music)

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