|HISTORY
|
MO' HISTORY ||
OUR PHILOSOPHY ||
WHAT IS CULTURE ||
REBUILDING
OUR CULTURE ||
||
ECONOMIC STRATEGIES ||
EDUCATIONAL STRATEGIES
||
INVESTIGATE YOUR HISTORY ||
||SOCIAL
ENTERPRISES ||
SOUTHERN LAND PLAN ||
MANDELA'S FARMER'S MARKET ||
OUR EXPERIMENTS ||
||FARM STUDY TOUR ||
FEED A NATION CONCERT ||
THE ADVENTURES OF HOTEP||
ABOUT FOUNDER/ BOARD|
||UPCOMING EVENTS||
PARTNERSHIPS/SPONSORS||
PRESS/MEDIA ||
HOW TO
SUPPORT ||CONTACT
US||
______________________________________________________________________________________________
MO’
BETTER FOOD™
“Connecting Black Farmers to the
Black Community”
History
“Pick
a Fruit. Feed a Child.
Plant a Seed. Feed a Nation”
History of Mobetter Food continued
One of our strategies to address the lack of markets of these farmers, was to start a farmers market in a low-income community that featured Black farmers. In 1998, we developed an agreement with the African American Farmers of California, that, if they could bring healthy food to Oakland’s food insecure communities, East and West Oakland, our program The Mo’ Better Food Market would get the word out for people to come out and support. The Mo’ Better Food Market, started selling produce grown from Black farmers in 1998 at Mack’s Meat, on Macurther Blvd in East Oakland.
The Mo’ Better Food Market, a year later, became a school enterprise at McClymonds High school. This development between Mo’ Better Food and McClymond’s High School was a natural fit, since I was the director of the Business Academy at McClymond’s High School.
I felt the curriculum of business at the High School level, consisted of a lot of books, but lacked hands on. With the approval of our principal, McClymonds High School became a farmers market that promoted fresh food grown by Black farmers.
Students in the business academy at McClymond’s High School conducted research on Black farmers, wrote press releases, developed databases of customers, produced and distributed flyers in the community, and designed the mobetterfood.com web-site. More importantly, they begin to think about what they were putting in their bodies. Since they worked with Black farmers they became more aware of the role agriculture plays in every day life.
The Mo’ Better Food Market became a meeting grounds for many of the elders in the community of West Oakland. The elders not only appreciated fresh collard greens, black –eyed peas, purple hulls, okra, and other traditional African American produce, they had grown up eating, but they also appreciated seeing “young folks in the community doing something positive.” Not only did the elders benefit from this relationship, but many youth from McClymond’s high school got a chance to meet alumni of McClymonds High School, and had various contacts, experiences to share with these youth.
go to page 2 of history of Mo'Better Food
