One of the critical aspects of Family Resource Centers (FRCs) are their strong roots in the settlement movement model (i.e., settlement houses). By focusing on mobilizing community assets, people at FRCs strive to work collectively for families. In the area of Early Care and Education (ECE), they offer resources to parents while they are learning how to best care for their young children. The early engagement with these families with needs also has an essential preventive effect so that in the future more significant or complex problems will not occur.

Not all FRCs have adopted the traditional practice of the settlement model. We are particularly excited to have been working with the Today Not Tomorrow Family Resource Center (TNT-FRC) since summer 2018. TNT-FRC has engaged families and children by exposing them to fresh produce from growing to processing to eating. TNT-FRC’s commitment to invest in the community has helped connect community members of the Truax Park Apartments in collectively learning about living and eating healthy. Its location in Truax has also allowed them to target low-income families, the elderly, and persons with disabilities; the demographic that has not been strategically included in the progressive local food movement, as research shows. More importantly, the ECE element of this initiative is for the young children (0-4 years of age) who are outside of the traditional Farm to School program. The introduction to healthy foods from an early age can build a child’s positive perception and lead to the development of healthy eating habits.

Recently, the City of Madison Common Council approved the SEED grant recommendation of the Food Policy Council to expand our collaboration with TNT-FRC. Joining in this partnership are the Healthy Kids Collaborative (HKC) and the Healthy Food for All (HFFA). Under the leadership of TNT-FRC, we will expand last year’s Farm to ECE project by:

• Enhancing food access by consolidating existing excess produce gleaning initiatives through strategic outreach and distribution. We will organize a two-hour weekly event to distribute free produce and to provide information about ways of utilizing the produce. In addition, the partnership will hold a four-hour monthly event where we will provide lunch, cooking demo, and food-based community story-telling activities.
• Offering educational activities to parents and other adults on food preservation including freezing fresh produce and preparing baby food.
• Providing healthy lunch and snacks to children and parents while at the FRC as an additional educational and nutritional resource. Parents often come unprepared with food or snacks, which limits their learning activities at FRC; and many families are income challenged.

Building on the settlement model, this collaboration of multiple organizations strives to enhance the social ties among local organizations. Each organization has strategic assets or resources to share that collectively will be impactful to Truax and its surrounding communities. While each organization plays a unique role, the collective significance of the partnership will help families to better care their young children. As Jane Addams emphasized more than a century ago, a community cannot operate so long as one group considers itself superior to another.

More importantly, this project on food justice is our attempt to frame the work that goes beyond the distribution of resources. Instead, we focus on the people as a means to provide robust, reliable food access, not seeing food access as the only goal.

Dadit Hidayat

*Farm to ECE is a Kids Forward project supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.