Farm to Community
What is Farm to Community?
Community connection is at the core of all of REAP's work. When we collaborate directly with organizations and leaders working on the ground, we can tap into deeper understandings of food system challenges. Together, we work on projects to create food solutions for the unique communities that our partners serve.
Project Spotlight
Food Entrepreneurship Course
“The F2F REAP team had a vision years ago to create a branch of the program that would not only bring in sustainable revenue, but continue to support our farmers through wholesale buying and empower our Femme-Latine community with upskilling opportunities. We spent the summer in a food entrepreneurship course led by Christine Ameigh of FoodWorks, and spent time working as a team perfecting home recipes into scalable and shelf-ready products, learning about the CPG landscape, and creating a business plan to make this dream a reality for the program. We bonded over shared identities and our diverse cuisine cultures we all hold from our home countries. The cohort of Chicas included REAP members Yolibeth and Paulina, R4C members, and women from the broader F2F community.”
– Paulina Baker, Farm to Community Coordinator
What Does Farm to Community (F2C) Do?
A Bowl of Soul
A Bowl of Soul (ABOS) is a meal prep and delivery program created by community doula, culinarian, agriculturist, and founder of Oasis Maternal Care, Qwantèse D. Winters. ABOS is committed to ensuring that Black mothers in Dane County receive the nourishment, support, and care they need to thrive in the postpartum period.
We're currently evaluating the program's impact and designing a sustainable model to carry this work forward and grow it to reach more families. This includes gathering feedback directly from the mothers ABOS has served, documenting what's working, and identifying the resources and partnerships needed to scale up. Our goal is to build a model that can sustain ABOS for the long term and serve as a blueprint for similar postpartum nourishment programs in other communities.
Farms to Families (F2F)/ Fondo de Granjas a Familias (FFF)
Farms to Families is a partnership between REAP, Roots4Change (R4C), and Second Harvest. This program purchases fresh, locally grown, culturally-relevant food from regional family farms and small businesses and distributes it to Madison-area Latino/Indigenous families experiencing job loss, food insecurity, and lack of access to social services. We prioritize purchasing from historically marginalized farmers and food producers, with an emphasis on those that produce culturally relevant foods. Currently, we work with ~20 growers and producers regularly to supply the program.
Participating families receive bi-weekly Resilience Bags – bags of local ingredients that come with nutrition information and culturally meaningful recipes. In addition to the boxes, REAP and R4C collaborate on social events to facilitate a co-learning space centering cooking, play, and reconnection to land and ancestral foodways.
Dane County Food System Action Plan
Every part of our food system, from the farms that grow our food to the tables where we eat it, is connected. But too often, the people and organizations doing this work are pulling in different directions, without a shared roadmap for where we're headed. The Dane County Food System Action Plan exists to change that.
This is a community-centered initiative led by REAP, to build a comprehensive, shared vision for a stronger, more resilient food system in Dane County, one where farmers can thrive, food is accessible to everyone, and resources are aligned instead of scattered. By bringing together farmers, food producers, retailers, buyers, agencies, organizations, and everyday eaters, we've created a plan that reflects what our community actually needs, and a foundation for the kind of lasting, deep change that no single organization can achieve alone.
Dane County Food Collective
No single person or organization can fix a food system alone. That's the idea behind the Dane County Food Collective (DCFC), an organization of individual food industry leaders and community members working together to create a stronger food system in Dane County. By showing up together, through advocacy, resource sharing, and collective action, we can move the needle on challenges that are simply too big to tackle solo.
DCFC meets monthly on the first Tuesday of the month from 7:30-9:00pm at the Madison Club to discuss food systems topics, share resources, and build the relationships that make collective action possible. Check out the website to sign up for the mailing list and join the conversation.
Collaborators
We know collaboration is key for advancing Farm to Community, so be sure to check out our partners and their resources.
We build trust with partners & communities to build food solutions that serve all.