The Food Turn Up
We are sharing community generated data on food access, production, processing, distribution and waste with vulnerable communities.
Our mission is to spread good information to strengthen our local food system.
Leader
Natilee McGruder
Location
Fairview Avenue Montgomery, AL 36105
About the project
You may know that Alabama is the second most obese state in the nation and that our obesity rate for children age 10-17 is 16.1%, making us ninth in the nation.
On the other hand, 19.2% of our population is food insecure, and we are the fourth most poverty-stricken state in the nation.
The Food Turn Up is a program of the River Region Food Policy Council ("RRFPC") that gathers information on the food systems of Tuskegee, Ft. Deposit and Montgomery communities in Central Alabama. We strive to find out what food-related issues (hunger, obesity, economics, waste, etc.) are most important to each community and what we can do to help.
Our job is to take this information, document it, and provide guidance in fixing unhealthy food systems.
The Steps
Information Gathering
Currently, we are completing the data collection phase—tabling at events, teaching food systems classes, administering our short survey and conducting in-depth interviews with food-system stakeholders.
Coalition Building
Everyone has a place at our table. From parents to policymakers, we try to bring people of all ages together to improve the food system. Everyone has a stake in our region’s food system and we can all be strong advocates for change.
Community-Based Action
We work to link people to information so they can fight food-related chronic disease and hunger in their own communities, while finding ways to support our local farmers and simultaneously improving the Alabama economy and the health of our families.
Why we‘re doing it
It’s all about education, the economy and eating well.
Our purpose is to help influencers across Alabama learn more about the food system challenges in low-income communities.
We provide useful information on the communities in Lowndes, Macon and Montgomery counties as a way to equip each community with knowledge of its food system, to empower each community, and to inform future grants and policy choices in Alabama and across the U.S.
We are leading the way in Alabama for respectful, relevant and community based food systems research.