Community Food Programs increase food security

Community food programs increase food security for individuals and communities throughout Oregon and Clark County, Wash.

What is community food security?

Community food security means:

• all people at all times have access to safe, nutritious, affordable, adequate and culturally appropriate food,
• all people can get their food from nonemergency sources and
• food is produced in ways that honor and preserve the environment and the workers who bring it to the marketplace.

Community food programs

• Gleaning programs help low-income people improve their self-reliance and build social capital.
• Learning Gardens teach people to grow their own food.
• Nutrition Education to help low-income people make the most of their scarce food dollars
• Community Basket, a member-run supplemental food program for low-income families
• ABC distributes free bread to students at targeted schools and keeps waste out of the landfills.
• Harvest Share to recover fresh fruit and vegetables and make them available to low-income people in the Portland metro area
• Clackamas County Food Basket provides supplemental groceries and a newsletter to low-income individuals in Clackamas County.

Oregon Food Bank supports community food programs in other ways

• We participate in local, state and national community food-security discussions to ensure policymakers hear the voices of low-income people. We work to make sure policy and program recommendations include nonemergency access to a nutritious, adequate diet by low-income people.
• We promote increased access of low-income people to farmers’ markets and other locally grown fresh food outlets.
• We provide technical assistance as requested to the growing number of community food councils and groups across Oregon.
• We network with community food programs and offer education on community food security.

Learn the six basic principles of Community Food Security.

Other useful resources

Community Food Security Coalition
http://www.foodsecurity.org

Ecotrust
http://www.ecotrust.org/foodfarms/cfm.html

Lane County Food Coalition
http://www.lanefood.org/

Oregon Farmers Market Association
http://www.oregonfarmersmarkets.org/

World Hunger Year
http://www.worldhungeryear.org/nhc

Foodroutes
http://www.foodroutes.org