The African American Roundtable is training resident leaders to develop a Northwest Side food access campaign.
At the organization’s visioning session on March 12 at Brentwood Church of Christ, 6425 N. 60th St. Staff and resident leaders recapped findings from the last two meetings, held a group discussion and presented ways residents can contribute to building the campaign.
Food access is the top priority among residents, according to feedback from the last session in October.
“I want to see people gardening,” said Ahard Byrd, a Northwest Side resident and leader. “I want to see people supporting the community gardens and the farmers markets.”
Byrd is part of the Northwest Side cohort, a small group of resident leaders already working on developing the campaign.
Background on AART
The African American Roundtable, also known as AART, centers its work around building Black liberation and began seeking community input on a Northwest Side safety campaign last year.
Residents brainstormed a vision for the Northwest Side in an August session.
In October, the Northwest Side cohort members led small group discussions on the themes of food access, green spaces, travel access, nostalgic feel and a people-affirming economy.
Using notes from the session, leaders determined possible focus areas of food safety information, community gardens and farmers markets.
Getting food access feedback
Ryeshia Farmer, AART’s community program manager, asked the more than 60 attendees how food access fits into a vision of community safety.
She said AART defines community safety as “community members keeping each other safe through building and maintaining relationships and helping to maintain each other’s needs so that we can exist among each other, prevent harm, solve problems and thrive.”
Most of the group signaled agreement with this definition and that food access would fit under it, but attendees had a range of ideas for areas to focus on.
Some talked about providing education around food preparation and healthy options, while others mentioned maintaining community gardens, ensuring travel access and filtering lead-contaminated water.
“Anything that we’re going to have to do, it’s going to require work and we need to be actively involved,” said Lolita Williams, a Northwest Side resident.
Next steps
Going forward, AART will continue to train the Northwest Side cohort to build a campaign throughout the spring and summer, with options for others to join training or become a leader.
“We really want to start building with people that we’ve already sort of been building with, who already sort of have a base level of training and just need a little bit more to develop a campaign and launch it and lead it,” Farmer said.
Williams said she volunteered to join the resident leaders.
“They’re directly working … and soliciting feedback from the community, so it’s important,” she said.
How to get involved
From 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday, April 26, AART is hosting a daylong retreat of campaign training.
The cohort of Northwest Side leaders will also sponsor public training sessions on organizing, recruiting people and building relationships on May 8, May 22 and June 5.
“The more leadership we have, the more we can lead by example,” Byrd said.
To become a Northwest Side leader, you must live in Aldermanic Districts 5 or 9, or in ZIP codes 53218, 53222, 53223 or 53224.
Residents interested in sharing thoughts on the campaign or learning more can reach out to AART.
Anyone not Black or fitting AART’s Northwest Side parameters, but interested in joining the campaign, is welcome to sign up for one of its upcoming public campaign trainings here.
