Community Leaders from the Neighborhood Food Action Collaborative
On May 25th 2023, our Co-Founder and Deputy Director, Mariana Cohen, had the opportunity to present at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Ounce of Prevention Conference, alongside Health Leads Program Director, Sarah Primeau. The two presented on the Neighborhood Food Action Collaborative (NFAC) as a replicable model to address food insecurity and other health challenges in communities across the Commonwealth. They shared their learnings from two years of efforts on a hyper-local model that prioritizes community leadership and cross-sector partnerships to position those most affected by institutional racism and food access challenges to be in the driver’s seat of bringing solutions to their own neighborhoods.
They also sat down for a Q&A with NFAC community leaders Ric Henry and Leah Arteaga, as well as NFAC member and peer advocate Sophia Michel, and discussed their roles in the collaborative, their motivations for leadership, advice on replicating success in other neighborhoods, and their vision for the future of NFAC.
The full Q&A with the NFAC community members is below.
Left to Right: Ric Henry, Sarah Primeau, Sophia Michel, Leah Arteaga, Mariana Cohen at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health Ounce of Prevention Conference, May 2023. The group spoke about the NFAC model in their presentation “For Us By Us: Community Response & Driven Solutions to Strengthen Boston’s Food Ecosystem.”
Q: Why did you get involved with NFAC?
[Ric] I got involved in this work because it’s for the people, by the people. There is community buy in - the community are partners and their voices are heard equally and justly. It feels good to see the community realize their power, collectively. In the food security world, we are seeing results when the community comes together and creates a plan with organizations supporting us, that gives me motivation to keep going.
[Leah] I was so impressed that a group of concerned citizens had decided to band together to make a difference so I said “where can I sign up?” Also my own lived experience motivated me to get involved. Several years ago I suddenly became a single mother of three, I lost my job, and dealt with food insecurity firsthand. Getting resources and navigating the food assistance system was difficult and I wanted to be involved with a group who was helping to create change.
[Sophia] I’m a mother of three living in Boston and I got engaged with NFAC because I wanted to know why my neighbors and community were lacking access to food. I loved seeing NFAC step up to support the community as one. This group is led by the community and allows community members to identify the problems and work on solutions that we are creating.
Q: Why did you decide to take on a leadership role?
[Ric] Deciding to take on a leadership role was easy and it was an honor to do so. NFAC’s governance, mission, vision and community agreements were all created by community members. This gives the community the power they need to make decisions about what is best for them. The community plays a major role in this collaborative. A matter of fact, the community IS the collaborative. This process ensures that the community gets to be at the center of all decision making and I wanted to help support this work.
[Leah] I had been running my own distribution program to reduce food waste and address food insecurity for three years prior to hearing about NFAC. I realized that this was a group of concerned and dedicated citizens who wanted to make an impact on their own community. And I said, “This is where I belong.” I could bring my experience, share my resources, and I could learn from them. I could also become a part of a larger group to make a bigger impact on the community. And so I just thought that by being a leader it would be beneficial. And so I threw my hat in the ring, the community voted me in, and here I am!
Q: Can you tell us about what efforts you have made to address food insecurity in your communities?
[Sophia] We did trainings on SNAP because we wanted to close the [SNAP] gap. We went to about 120 community events around the city so that they're not scared of us and to let them know what the SNAP is all about. We enrolled about 300 people.
I helped out a lot of elders who didn't know what to do or how to apply. We started to fill in the gap by telling them to come meet us and we'll walk you through it. But we didn't forget about them because that's what tends to happen at the Department of Transitional Assistance [DTA].
The reason why a lot of people didn't want to participate with SNAP was because of a language barrier. We tackled everybody. We had flyers in English, Haitian Creole, Spanish, Cape Verde, Vietnamese. We touched it. So we showed them that you don't have to be scared. It's for you guys. We're not against you.
Q: What advice do you have for community leaders looking to replicate your success?
[Ric] I would say that make sure it's all about community. Community has to be at the center of everything. It has to be about the community and not about anything else than what's best for the community.
[Sophia] It’s all about listening, connecting, networking, and putting in real action to make change.
[Leah] We have been learning as leaders to actively listen. So that we get to the heartbeat of what the community actually needs and wants.
Q: What do you hope to see for NFAC in the next five to ten years?
[Ric] In 5 or 10 years, I see NFAC being completely community driven, community led. A steady flow of funds coming in not just to buy food, but to do a lot of other important things. I imagine us with a structure where we have a community kitchen where people can come in to cook fresh healthy meals and storage for food for distribution and ingredients for the community.
I also see a place where we can work with the youth to teach them a little bit more about community service and getting involved with their community as well as working with other organizations that are creating and shifting policy. Overall, I see a community living healthy.
[Leah] in 5 to 10 years I see us having a location like a community health hub. So not only are we feeding people, but we're also giving people access to simple things like blood pressure checks, and sugar level checks if they have diabetes or other things like that, maybe even vaccine clinics. The sky is the limit.
We're doing something that's extremely unique because it is grassroots. It is the people from the community. It's the voice of the community. And this is quite a unique model. It's a sustainable model where people from the community are the ones at the table, at the seat and at making the decisions making things happen. It will be the voice of the community serving the community.
Leah Arteaga is an NFAC Community Leader and the founder of Roslindale Food Collective, a food-rescue and distribution program she created in response to her own lived experience with food insecurity when she became a single mother of 3.
Ricardo Henry is an NFAC Community Leader and the founder of the the Hyde Park Food Pop-Up, a peer-to-peer food distribution program that serves populations traditionally underserved by food banks: BIPOC, immigrant, and elderly individuals.
Sophia Michel is an NFAC member, Hyde Park resident and NFAC peer SNAP advocate. She volunteers with multiple food distribution programs across the city, including the Hyde Park Food-Pop Up, Roslindale Food Collective, and the Carver Den in Dorchester.
[Interview excerpts transcribed by Health Leads, May 2023]
