Food Justice & Advocacy Projects
Food Advocacy Team aka Community Centered Health Core Team. (L-R) Ginger Webb, Dawna Ledbetter, Angela Forney, Paula Swepson, Rubi Mar, Kathy Arriola
Keeping it Fresh Community Garden
The community garden is run by our youth and distributes fresh produce to our neighbors. It’s a place where our youth learn leadership skills, gardening skills, and practice fresh cooking. Through this effort, we also coordinate monthly food distributions for the community, where we ensure that fresh and culturally appropriate foods are available for diverse community members. As a food justice leader, we attend city and county meetings to speak to critical issues related to food insecurity in our region and advocate for more investments in the local food economy. We have also taken youth on local farm tours and brought attention to the intersection between climate change and food insecurity.
Team Members Dawna Ledbetter and Angie Forney are members of the Community of Practice Cohort, “Roots of Resilience: People, Power, and Possibility,” hosted by Community Food Strategies.
“Produce for Peds” A Partnership with Pediatricians
Community-Centered Health Initiative
Community-centered health is a new way of addressing health, building trust, and creating community change to improve health. In this approach, community members partner with healthcare organizations to identify, lead, and act on improvements that lead to optimal health for all people.
West Marion Community Forum is using a community centered health approach to drive systemic changes to address childhood obesity and the underlying factors that contribute to this health disparity in McDowell County, NC. West Marion will do this by working with historically excluded residents in African-American, Latinx, and white communities focusing on food access, physical activity, transportation, and youth engagement. This work is supported by the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation of North Carolina.
