It's been a very busy and eventful summer thanks to the organizations EAT, IDEO, Thought For Food, The Rockefeller Foundation, Forum for the Future, Meridian Institute, SecondMuse and Intention 2 Impact who joined forces to support ideas, enterprises and initiatives through the Food Systems Game Changers Lab that I've been a part of, and there have been some exciting updates for Love & Plenty which is the project I submitted to the Lab that was accepted into the program. For twelve weeks I've been a part of a Cohort that has been discussing ideas to create a solution for the topic "Building Food Literacy Through Education" and though we are now nearing the end of the program we are at the beginning of another part of the journey. We met weekly by Zoom call because, though there were some members located more locally, we were a group that was located all over the world. It was a beautiful experience to have the opportunity to meet all of these wonderful people from so many different backgrounds and so many different places and to come together to talk about this topic and realize how closely we all were thinking. As we neared the end of the twelve weeks, we began to form the ideas we had been sharing into an Action Agenda that would be submitted and published for the United Nations Food Systems Summit 2021 which began on the 23rd of this month. We will also present our ideas to interested stakeholders and possible supporters and funders beginning on September 27th. The entire process has been such an educational and personally broadening one, as we worked together to create something that was much larger than any of our original projects that we had submitted to the program. Global in scope but also locally replicable, the solution we created will now be shared with the world.
It was hard to imagine in the beginning that we would get to this place, but with so many excellent minds and hearts sharing time and effort together, great things can happen. As part of the Executive Editing team, I suggested we include as many of our Cohort Members as possible in the process because everyone has so many wonderful skills and ideas to share. When we began to think of a name, I started to play with words one morning, and "Education = Power In Choice (EPIC): Empowering Communities Through Food System Education" took form. I sent it out to the group and it was chosen, and it helped to give form and a throughline to the vision of community education that would help bring positive change in the food system that would impact people of all ages and backgrounds throughout the world.
As we begin to present our solution over these next days and weeks, it will be exciting to see what will unfold. I've been in touch with some long term friends and mentors and colleagues as well as some newer ones, and it has felt so wonderful to reconnect again around this issue. As I look back to the time fifteen years ago when I first began to work in ministry after I was born again, first in a meal program on Manhattan's lower east side and then in an after school youth program on Avenue D and 11th Street in Jacob Riis Houses, I never would have dreamed then that this work would have taken me to this place. As the fall begins with the weather that I love so much, I've been taking walks and remembering those days that are now in the past. I had nothing then, or what felt like nothing, because so much had been lost, but through these years I have not wanted for anything and step by step as I followed the dreams that God had put into my heart, dreams that said that all people deserve healthy, fresh and delicious food, to have a place of peace and safety to live and rest, and to have work they enjoy tthat sustains them and is sustainable, I found that the more I encouraged and supported and gave a helping hand to others my own life became more beautiful and more fulfilled. Love & Plenty was created from the inspiration of the life I've lived, my experiences of these past fifteen years, and a very special Chef, and as this new part of the vision begins to unfold, I am so grateful for all that has happened to bring it to this point and look forward with excitement, knowing the best is yet to come.
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