Food deserts — areas without access to nutritious food — dot urban areas. As we previously pointed out, attracting a big-box supermarket isn’t the only solution. San Francisco is proving this by adding fresh produce to bodegas that once relied solely on peddling booze and smokes to the community.
The City by the Bay’s comprehensive approach can be traced back to an initiative started nearly 25 years ago. The Food Trust of Philadelphia, one of the most ambitious programs of its kind in one of America’s poorest and most unhealthy big cities, began in a public housing development in South Philly, with volunteers piling mounds of fruits and veggies on one long table outside the project each week. Since 1992, they’ve taken their work beyond that first farmer’s market, improving access to healthy food and nutritional information for nearly 220,000 residents in poor neighborhoods — making Philadelphia one of the first cities to meet the First Lady’s “Let’s Move” challenge to eliminate food deserts entirely by 2017.
“We started to see that farmer’s markets provide seasonal access to fresh fruits and vegetables, not a long-term solution — or the only solution. They really only can open in summer on the East Coast. We realized it was really important to look at the longer term and more comprehensive approaches to food access,” says Candace Young, The Food Trust’s associate director of research and evaluation. Around 2004, “the first thing we did was we mapped out areas of the city that had low access to supermarkets and high-diet related deaths — the pockets of the city that needed better access. We sent that report to policy makers and practitioners, the health community and its advocates, the food retail community. What was built from there was this multi-million dollar public-private initiative to build new or even just renovate supermarkets around the whole state.”
Just how much of a difference can access to fruits and vegetables in a neighborhood actually make? Research shows that living in a food desert isn’t simply an inconvenience for locals or a matter of how long the bus ride will be; it’s linked to serious health problems like obesity, hypertension, heart disease and diabetes. But The Food Trust’s work appears to be making a dent. Between 2006 and 2010, obesity among kids in Philly decreased by five percent — the first downward trend since 1976.
A key aspect of The Food Trust’s work in Pennsylvania involved renovating bodegas — corner stores where the average elementary school student in Philadelphia buys 350 calories worth of food on each visit, according to a 2008 study. More than one quarter — 29 percent — stop in twice a day, five days a week. That means they’re consuming roughly an additional pound of food from this retailer every week.
In response, The Food Trust convinced corner store owners to sell more fruits, vegetables, low-fat dairy and whole grains and offered money for renovations. Since the Healthy Corner Store Initiative launched in 2004, it’s established a network of 650 stores. With $30 million in public financing and $90 million in private financing, it can pay for upgrades that are as easy as buying new refrigeration for $500 and as tough as building a whole new mega-mart for several million, Young says. In total, the organization funded 1.67 million square feet of retail development and created 5,000 jobs.
“Corner store owners are a very different business than large supermarkets. They’re a convenience model: you want to get in and out. Oftentimes, you go in to buy chips and a drink, a pack of cigarettes or a lottery ticket,” Young says. “Partly what we’re trying to do is shift to a culture of health around corner stores, where they’re seen again as small grocery venues. Instead of packaged foods, I may need to grab eggs, some milk, some bread and a couple of fruits for me and for my family.”
There’s still some debate about whether these interventions are the best way to deal with food deserts. Some critics point to a lack of causal evidence and say the theory’s “intuitive” underpinnings don’t check out. “If you live next to a Mercedes dealership, that doesn’t mean you’ll buy a Mercedes,” Adam Drewnowski, an epidemiology professor at the University of Washington, tells the Washington Post. “And it’s the same with living next to a grocery store: That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll start eating salads.”
After the first pilot at a handful of stores, The Food Trust documented a 35 percent increase in the sale of healthy items and an even bigger boost — 60 percent — in produce sales. That means $100 in extra profits every week for sellers.
Anecdotally, too, customers seem to be buying. “Now, when I’m talking to people who come into the store, they are asking: What do you have fresh today? And I can say I have apples. I have oranges. I have all kinds of stuff,” says Catalina Morrell-Hunter, one storeowner in North Philadelphia who joined the network after 15 years in business. “We have a refrigerator in the store that we didn’t have before. It has yogurt and fresh fruit and fresh vegetables. And I try to get other products that are better for you, healthier and lower calorie. I’m more conscious of that now.”
The Food Trust’s supporters point to a drop in obesity as evidence something’s clearly working, but they’ll also readily admit fresh food at corner stores isn’t the only explanation. In the City of Brotherly Love, access to fresh and affordable food, amenities for exercise and information to make healthy decisions all go hand-in-hand. Philly’s also added nearly 30 miles of bike lanes, launched a media campaign about sugary drinks that was seen 40 million times and established parent-driven “wellness councils” in 170 public schools.
“We believe that supermarket access is one piece of a comprehensive approach,” says Yael Lehmann, The Food Trust’s executive director. “While bringing in healthy food stores into neighborhoods, we also want to be teaching kids how to eat healthy in schools, we want to be having cooking demonstrations at recreation centers, running farmers’ markets in neighborhoods. All of these things combined is what can improve the health of people and their neighborhoods.”
Tag: philadelphia
This Man Walked Away From Wall Street. Now His Pizza Parlor Is Feeding Philadelphia’s Homeless
You can’t buy much for two dollars these days, but in Philadelphia, you can feed yourself and a homeless neighbor with just a couple of bucks.
After leaving a successful Wall St. career because he found it unfulfilling, owner Mason Wartman opened Rosa’s Fresh Pizza in late 2013. He had witnessed the popularity of the one-dollar pizza joints in New York City and decided that a the concept might work in his native Philadelphia.
“I knew that we would be feeding homeless people because we’d be providing affordable food,” says Wartman. “About three months into operation, a paying customer asked if he could pre-purchase a slice for a homeless person. And so I ran out, got a stack of Post-it Notes to remind myself and the employees that we could help someone out when they came in short.”
Before long, the walls of Rosa’s became covered in Post-it Notes. Each one signifies someone who has given a dollar so that that a homeless or hungry person can enjoy a meal at no-cost. The messages on some are simple; others have drawings or a friendly letter.
Each day, a few dozen homeless people file into Rosa’s to enjoy the kindness of their neighbors. In the last year, Wartman reports that this system has provided more than 14,000 free slices for Philadelphians in need.
“This is way more rewarding than what I used to do on Wall Street,” says Wartman. “I learn a ton everyday, I meet really cool people — homeless and not homeless. I get to see a positive difference being made in a city that I really love. So, what more could I ask for, right?”
The Top 5: America’s Best New Buildings
Undoubtedly, we associate cities with their iconic structures: New York City’s Empire State Building, San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge and the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, to name a few. But these edifices — so forward-thinking for their time that we’re still in awe of them today — are at least half a century old, making it seem like the era of erecting statement-making civic structures has passed.
Proving that designers are still as innovative as ever, however, are this year’s recipients of the prestigious Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA). The winners, which will be formally recognized at AIA’s National Convention in Atlanta this May, are diverse “in scale, expense, concept, use, in virtually every aspect,” says Waller McGuire, executive director of St. Louis Public Library and the only non-architect on AIA’s nine-member jury. “The strongest connection between the award winners is that we looked for architecture that respects and elevates the people using it: the people who will ultimately judge it for themselves.”
With that in mind, here’s a selection of five outstanding buildings, all of whose architects paid particular attention to their social responsibilities, impact and energy usage.
[ph][ph][ph][ph][ph][ph][ph][ph][ph][ph]
How New Americans are Shoring Up America’s Economy
Walk down Main Street in your community and it’s likely that you’ll pass by a lot of immigrant-owned businesses.
In the new report “Bringing Vitality to Main Street,” the Council of the Americas and the Fiscal Policy Institute find that between 2000 and 2013, immigrant-owned businesses were responsible for all the net growth in Main Street businesses — from restaurants to hairdressers to auto body shops — throughout the U.S. and in 31 of the largest 50 cities in the country.
Immigrants own 53 percent of America’s grocery stores, 45 percent of its nail salons and 38 percent of its restaurants. Overall, immigrants own 28 percent of the Main Street businesses in America, even though they only comprise 16 percent of country’s population.
The authors of the report included businesses owned by both documented and undocumented immigrants in the study, zeroing in on three areas where vibrant immigrant communities have revitalized neighborhoods and cities: Philadelphia, Nashville and the Twin Cities.
Jennifer Rodriguez, executive director of Philadelphia’s Mayor’s Office of Immigrant and Cultural Affairs, tells NBC News that the report, “really tells a story of how hard-working they are and how they are contributors to our city, how they helped bring back neighborhoods that have been in decline.”
In addition to contributing to business growth, immigrants seem to be shoring up the housing market as well. Gillian B. White writes for National Journal that while millennials have so far proven to be less likely than previous generations to purchase real estate, buying a house is still a key goal for many immigrants. In fact, according to the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, immigrants are responsible for 27.5 percent of the growth in homeownership over the past 20 years. Unlike their millennial counterparts from non-immigrant families, the children of immigrants account for the largest increase in the growth of households headed by people under age 30.
As Rodriguez says, “I often say that what is good for immigrants is good for everyone.”
MORE: To Fix A Neighborhood, Invite A Newcomer
Why It’s Important to Hear the Haunting Tales of War
Who better to hear tales of wartime bravery from than soldiers themselves?
That was the thinking of 17-year-old Derek Copeland. The Philadelphia native has always been interested in military history — reading books on World War II and visiting battle sites from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, as well as World War II memorials in Europe.
So when it came time for Copeland to choose a project to earn his Eagle Scout rank, military history was at the forefront of his mind. So he found one that related to it and also honored veterans at the same time.
Copeland organized volunteers to interview 17 veterans from Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York. Recordings of the conversations will be donated to the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.
“Many my age and in my generation will not have opportunities to directly speak to these veterans and hear their stories first-hand, so I thought recordings would be a wonderful way preserve and hear them,” Copeland tells the Courier-Post. He said the vets’ stories were “moving” and “amazing.”
Copeland’s collected stories include an interview with 91-year-old John Lauriello, who was among the first Marines to land on Iwo Jima, and 64-year-old Richard Feldman, who volunteered for the military during the Vietnam War, informing families when a loved one had died overseas.
Maureen Harris, the spokeswoman of the Library of Congress, says, “We accept oral histories and receive audio and videotaped recordings from public and private donors, including Eagle Scouts, as well as original materials like letters, diaries and photographs.”
Eventually, the recordings will be archived for researchers to study.
MORE: Inspired by Homeless Veterans in His Own Family, This Boy Scout Helps Give Those in His Community a Fresh Start
Rosa’s Fresh Pizza Has Given Away More Than 8,400 Slices to the Homeless
Rosa’s Fresh Pizza in Philadelphia has an unusual type of wallpaper: Neon Post-it notes.
Each sticky slip represents a customer who gave an extra dollar so that a homeless person could eat a slice.
The pay-it-forward menu began nine months ago, owner Mason Wartman tells NPR, when someone asked if he could buy something extra for the homeless. “I said ‘Sure.’ I took his dollar and ran out and got some Post-it notes and put one up to signify that a slice was purchased,” Wartman explains.
While lots of take-out restaurants have boxes near the register asking for loose change (a simple reminder of how many people are hungry), this pizzeria took it further, displaying the Post-its side-by-side with letters of thanks from grateful recipients — proving just how much an extra buck can impact someone in need of a meal.
Word of free cheesy, thin-crust pizza has spread, and about 30 to 40 homeless people drop by Rosa’s every day. Luckily, generous customers stop by in huge numbers, too. So far, the shop’s clientele has bought more than 8,400 slices for their neighbors living on the street.
“I just want to thank everyone that donated to Rosa’s,” one message taped on the wall says in bright red marker, “it gave me a place to eat everyday and the opportunity to get back on my feet. I start a new job tomorrow!”
On a paper plate, a homeless veteran writes, “God bless you. Because of you I ate off this plate, the only thing I ate all day.”
Wartman, 27, formerly worked as an equity research on Wall Street. After falling in love with $1-a-slice pizza in New York City, he brought the cheap and simple model back to his hometown and named Rosa’s Fresh Pizza (which he opened in December 2013) after his mother. Even with his knack for business, Wartman’s customers were buying so many free meals for the homeless that he had to abandon the Post-it system once it exceeded 500 slices. Now, he keeps tabs at the register.
Giving away food wasn’t enough for Wartman. Since last November, he’s been selling sweatshirts and donating one to a homeless person for each purchase. The fuzzy garment has his restaurant’s logo emblazoned on the outside and, inside, contains a schedule and a directory for local soup kitchens and homeless shelters. On “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” this week, he challenged national chains like Chipotle to follow suit.
Why do he and his customers do it? “They’re just really nice people, you know? Sometimes homeless people buy them for other homeless people,” Wartman says. “This is a super-easy way, a super-efficient way and a super-transparent way to help the homeless.”
This must be why they call Philadelphia the City of Brotherly Love.
[ph]
These Cops Are Making Craigslist a Safer Place to Shop
While Craigslist can be useful when it comes to offloading old furniture or selling concert tickets, it can also be the breeding ground for dangerous meet-ups between strangers. Law enforcement has long warned that posts can be a ploy for robbery or other deadly crimes. Which is why a police department outside of Philadelphia is now allowing online users to complete their cash transactions just outside the department with officers conveniently nearby.
Cops in Conshohocken, Penn., have opened up their parking lot as a free place for Craigslist users to meet to exchange cash for goods, the Associated Press reports. Conshohocken Officer Steve Vallone first came up with the idea after he learned his wife was planning to meet someone at their home to complete an online purchase.
“I figured there’s got to be a better place for people who don’t know each other to complete these transactions,” Vallone says. “Why not allow people to complete their online transactions from here? It seems like the perfect match.”
Residents can use the well-lit lot 24 hours a day or the lobby, which is available from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. In addition to lights, the parking lot is also equipped with four surveillance cameras and an emergency call button to contact the station inside.
While the police said the initiative was not in respond to any crimes, NBC Philadelphia reports the move comes a few weeks after an alleged rapist was charged with killing a man he met on Craigslist.
Last May in Florida, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office offered up its four parking lots as a safe zone for people to answer classifieds or complete cash transactions for online purchases.
With more people using online marketplaces, let’s hope more communities catch on to creating safe zones.
MORE: This Teacher Made a Viral Photo to Teach About Internet Safety
What Happens When You Give a Soldier a Pen Instead of a Gun?
For seven years, members of a Philadelphia-based nonprofit have been traveling the country turning the stereotype of veterans not speaking about their military service on its head.
Warrior Writers hosts regular workshops for veterans in Chicago; Ithaca, N.Y.; New York City and Boston; as well as visiting workshops in other cities to help soldiers (regardless of age) express their feelings and experiences through poetry and prose.
This year Warrior Writers is teaming up with Combat Paper, a nonprofit teaching vets how to turn their old uniforms into artful paper (read our story about the organization here), to offer three writing and paper-making workshops in New Jersey. These efforts were made possible by a $135,000 grant from Impact 100 Garden State.
After the veterans and active-duty service personnel polish their writing at the workshop in Morristown, N.J., they will be presenting their work during the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival at the NJ Performing Arts Center in Newark on October 25.
One participant in the Morristown workshop is Sarah Mess of Branchburg, N.J. Mess served in the Army in Somalia and wrote a piece in the voice of male soldiers who didn’t think she belonged. “She thinks too highly of herself,” Mess reads in a video for Daily Record. “Let’s knock this girl back down to her stupid, dumb girl position. Come on, boys, sic her. Get her. Beat her. Kick her. Don’t let her up. But she’s bleeding. Good for her. That’s what she gets. She should have never joined the Army.”
“I’m able to express and tap into things here that maybe I didn’t even know were still stirring, like I did today,” Mess tells Lorraine Ash of Daily Record. “I’m able to bring those things to the surface and share them in safe spaces with people who’ve experienced similar things. The draw is that it’s veterans working with veterans. The draw is that we don’t call it therapy. When you start calling things therapy, it creates an aversion to wanting to participate because of the stigma. This works because it’s just community.”
Eli Wright, who works for Combat Paper NJ and served as a medic in the Army, tells Ash that while explorations of painful topics like Mess’s piece are welcome, “We’re not all here because we are broken by the military and trying to heal. We have a lot of veterans involved in these projects who are not combat veterans. A lot served during peacetime, but they’re still artists and they still have plenty of things to say. It’s not all about war trauma.”
Clearly, it’s about art.
MORE: This Paper Can Heal Veterans
Which 3 Cities are Fighting Poverty Through a Tech Cohort?
As more cities embrace the civic innovation movement to tackle local problems, Philadelphia, Nashville and Louisville are harnessing new technology to reach out to residents in most need of help.
In collaboration with nonprofit Living Cities and the nonprofit arm of global bank Citi, the Citi Foundation, the three cities will form the first cohort under City Accelerator, a program with the goal of helping nine cities innovate solutions to tackle everyday challenges facing low-income residents.
Louisville, Nashville and Philadelphia have been selected to spend the next 18 months implementing tech-driven solutions with guidance from coaches and other municipal innovators to create solutions faster and promote more proactive governance. But unlike other philanthropic programs aimed at municipal innovation, there’s no monetary incentive.
Instead, each city receives $3 million worth of technical assistance and consulting to implement their respective innovative projects.
Louisville plans to use its established innovation toolkit as part of the pilot program, focusing on services for people suffering from mental illness and substance abuse while Nashville officials plan to collaborate with other city agencies and local nonprofits to combat homelessness through affordable housing and more economic opportunity, according to Governing.
“Both the public and private sectors in Nashville are filled with dedicated individuals who work hard every day to help more citizens share in our city’s economic success,” says Nashville Mayor Karl Dean. “Our Office of Innovation is working to bring all of those entities to the same table, because we know separate efforts can be much more impactful when our strategies are unified and everyone is willing to consider new approaches.”
Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s innovation team will partner with city departments to assist low-income residents in accessing benefits and tax relief.
As a cohort, all three cities will also rely on each other to share ideas and resources as they implement solutions to their local problems.
“Cities are getting better at making incremental improvements to the way they deliver services,” says Nigel Jacob, co-founder of the Mayor’s Office of New Urban Mechanics for the City of Boston, who is leading the first cohort. “This is important, but it is not enough to solve our greatest challenges. Cities need to be able to find breakthrough ways of solving problems on an ongoing basis.”
The goal is to get more urban communities on board with innovating faster, creating more universal solutions that can be consistently applied elsewhere. The three cities were selected from 35 other cities and six finalists, and two more City Accelerator cohorts are expected to launch in spring and fall of 2015, according to a press release. Living Cities also plans to regularly update an innovation guide.
“There’s a cacophony of activity around ‘cities need to be doing different things,’” says Ted Smith, chief of civic innovation in Louisville. “We’re now at a point where we’re trying to get some focus on the way that cities rationalize, organize and prioritize this kind of effort in a sustainable way.”
MORE: Can $45 Million Worth of Data and Technology Improve U.S. Cities?
How Competition Breeds Innovation
Most of us have probably heard the old adage about how competition always brings out the worst in people. While it can cause tension to run high, competition can also be a great way to push people towards a new level of creativity.
And that’s why some cities are harnessing that positive attribute of competition and using government-sponsored contests to bring social good to their communities.
For the past 10 years, Philadelphia has hovered between being the fourth and seventh most dangerous big city in the U.S., according to Governing. This year, after clocking in at number five, the city realized that something needed to change.
So the City of Brotherly Love launched the $100,000 FastFWD challenge – a competition in which entrepreneurs find innovative solutions to crime. The winners received $10,000 each and the opportunity to run a pilot program of their idea. The competition also encouraged the winning programs to collaborate with each other through complementary skill sets. Additionally, it united problems with problem-solvers and was a cost-effective alternative to the usual government procurement process, reports Governing.
This year, one of the winners was Jail Education Solutions. Created by a young entrepreneur whose father was incarcerated in California’s Folsom Prison, the program offers educational opportunities for inmates through tablet-based learning.
With all of the benefits, Philadelphia isn’t the only city hosting competitions.
Last year, New York City rain BigApps – a competition to create innovative apps that would make every New Yorker’s life a little easier. Among the winners: apps that find healthy food at nearby restaurants, locate good child care, calculate savings of installing different home solar-power options and teach software coding to kids.
While it may seem like a daunting task to launch these competitions, it’s actually quite simple. For the past five years, hundreds of these competitions have been held. By following these three principles, according to Governing, you can avoid the early struggles.
1. Identify the problem you want to solve before you create the prize, which should reflect your goals.
2. Prize competitions are best used when the problem has multiple solutions. This will inspire creativity and innovative answers.
3. Every participant needs to get something out of the contest not just the winners, so include mentorship or networking opportunities.
If there’s a problem that your city needs help solving, perhaps you should suggest to your local officials that they hold a contest. Chances are, the answers are right in your community.
MORE: What’s the Best to Spark Creativity Among City Workers?