ReStoringNashville's blog

Last night, approximately 50 people gathered in the Bethlehem Centers gym to find out about diet, health, and watch Food, Inc.  This is the second screening of the film that Re/Storing Nashville has been able to facilitate through the Ingredients for Change campaign, funded through support of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  The first screening was held at the Belmont United Methodist Church on March 31, 2010, in collaboration with the Edgehill Family Resource Center, community partners, and Metro agencies.

We were lucky to have a great co-host for this second screening, in Bethlehem Centers, who worked with the Re/Storing Nashville Leadership Team and leadership of John Henry Hale Homes to plan and execute a successful evening.  The questions posed to our panelists for the evening were incredible.  The panelists were: organic farmer, Freddie Haddox; TSU Agricultural School professor, Leslie Speller-Henderson; Nashville Farmers' Market director, Jeff Themm; and Mayor's Office of Healthy Living Initiatives director, Toks Omishakin.

Not only did we have health screenings provided by Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center and information on fiber and food safety from TSU, but we also had information about the services provided by Bethlehem Centers and the variety of programs and intitiatives of Community Food Advocates.

The diverse audience included the Bethlehem Centers after-school program, families, farmers, church gardeners and local celebrities interested in the film and how they can get involved in sharing resources and improving child health.

While we're thrilled about how the screening went off, we're eager to continue the conversation with North Nashville residents about affordable healthy food access and how to bring it back to the neighborhood.  A Community Forum will be held at Bethlehem Centers from 5:00 - 6:30pm on Tuesday, October 12, 2010.  If you are interested in helping to plan this forum (format, facilitation, donation of refreshments, etc.) please come to a planning meeting at Bethlehem Centers from 12-1pm on Thursday, September 30...bring your lunch and a friend!

Thirty years ago, childhood obesity wasn't on anyone's radar.  What have we done to our children over the past few decades to be in the situation where we hear over and over again that this generation of kids will have a shorter lifespan than their parents?  Why do we continue to get fatter?  And what are we doing about it?

Did the advent of Happy Meals do it?  Video games?  Lack of safe spaces to play or sidewalks?  Is it a lack of time to spend on cooking and eating as a family

Re/Storing Nashville is aware of all of the above factors, but we are focused on addressing the lack of affordable healthy food access in underserved communities.

Re/Storing Nashville, in partnership with the Edgehill Family Resource Center and the Organized Neighbors of Edgehill:

Edgehill Food Now! is hosting the Edgehill Food Awareness Cookout

Tuesday, August 31, 2010
3:30-6:30pm
1277 12th Avenue South

We hope you will be there to celebrate our working together and participate in bringing a grocery store back to Edgehill!

The Re/Storing Nashville Leadership Team, comprised of North Nashville, East Nashville and Edgehill residents, meets each Monday afternoon.  Today, we took a field trip!

Over the last two weeks, we've been having lots of conversations with organizations, individuals and businesses planning/hoping to open smallscale grocery stores in Nashville food desert neighborhoods.  Included in those conversations, was talk of a new Turnip Truck Urban Fare in the Gulch, just outside of Edgehill.

Our excursion today, however, was focused on North Nashville.  We have been consulting for the last few months with a local food retailer working on a business plan for a neighborhood grocery store behind the Youth Opportunity Center, one block from Charlotte Ave.  As we stood discussing the property amongst ourselves, two teenage boys were walking along the street, and we stopped them to find out their opinions.  They readily talked about how a grocery store on that block "would put a smile on every face in the neighborhood."  The neighborhood is walkable, and centrally located.  I can imagine having the same conversation with each resident of the neighborhood.

From that location, we traveled to The Farm in the City community garden, serving the John Henry Hale Apartments.  The garden was beautiful, with raised beds filled with everything from blueberry bushes to basil, tomatoes to turnips.  We were excited to see that there was a handicap accessible bed with adjacent parking, water pumps built into the design of the garden, and a port-a-potty!

We moved from the garden to the old Matthew Walker Comprehensive Health Center site, on Herman between 14th and 16th, owned by Fisk University.  The property, empty now, but for thistles in bloom, a concrete parking lot shrinking with the encroachment of grass and weeds, and hackberry trees blowing in the breeze.  This 2.68 acre lot is in a perfect location for a grocery store.  Surrounded by apartment buildings, a woman visiting a resident stopped to tell us that we should put a grocery store there.  It was amazing!  We hadn't said a word about why we were looking at the lot, or that our goal is to get affordable healthy foods into the neighborhood. 

Encouraged, we drove back to the office and talked about all of the potential in our city, about the need, about the hard work ahead of us, and about the excitement of it all.

What does it mean to have affordable healthy food access? For three Nashville neighborhoods (North Nashville/Charlotte Ave., East Nashville/Cayce Place, Edgehill), it usually means finding a ride (via family, friends, neighbors, taxi or bus) to the grocery store. 

Over the course of our first year, we've seen and done a lot: vast improvements to Bill Martin's grocery store in East Nashville; begun conversations with MTA/RTA and InShuttle about increaseing direct access to supermarkets from North Nashville, Edgehill and East Nashville; there are whispers of interest from a grocer in the corner of 12th and Wedgewood; engineering students at TSU are creating a vision for a currently vacant grocery the corner of 39th and Clifton;