October 5, 2007
Philadelphia, PA
Anti-hunger advocates and nutrition experts of Philadelphia gathered together to design a plan to eradicate hunger and to increase access to healthful foods in Philadelphia.
At the outset, Philadelphia advocates listened to lessons learned from the anti-hunger initiatives in New York City. Lucy Mayo was the Director of the New York Council Policy and Investigation Division under City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. Fern Gale Estrow is a registered dietitian and founder of the FGE Food and Nutrition Team in New York City. Both women spoke about their instrumental roles in New York City's plan to develop innovative initiatives to increase New Yorker's access to healthy foods and eliminate hunger.
They spoke about the process city officials took when Mayor Michael Bloomberg took office. Offering first-hand accounts and advice the they urged Philadelphia leaders to create cross-agency cooperation among all of the city offices that deal with food and nutrition.
Over 100 anti-hunger advocates from several departments, non-profit organizations, and academia (including The GROW Project) gathered to discuss a strategy for moving forward to inform policy when the next Mayor of Philadelphia takes office next fall. Two workshops focused on Federal and State Nutrition Program: Increasing Participation and Promoting Healthy Foods and Fresh Food Partnerships: Linking Farmers, Urban Gardeners, Charitable Food Programs, Grocers, and Institutional Food Purchases to discover common goals to ending hunger and increasing access to nutritious foods in Philadelphia.
World Food Day was hosted by the Philadelphia Coalition Against Hunger and the University of Pensylvania. The Fresh Food Agenda will be defined and refined throughout the next year to inform the next Mayor of Philadelphia about important issues related to hunger and access to nutritious foods. The next meeting is open to the public and will be health at Nutritional Development Services at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia on November 7, 2007.
For more information about World Food Day click on the link below:
http://www.hungercoalition.org/howwefighthunger/education/worldfoodday.html
Posted by Michelle Chyatte, Policy Coordinator, GROW Project