"Hungry for Change" screening in Iowa

The Community Builders film, "Hungry for Change" will be screened in Iowa at the Community Food Security Coalition's conference.
Check it out here!

2009 Documentary: "Hungry for Change"

The Site of the Summer Research

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Final Reflections on the Summer

This summer was a great experience, it is a summer that I will never forget. I met a lot of great people and there were a lot of details that I learned about food deserts. The first detail was that most strawberries and fruit in stores have steroids. Another detail that I learned was that an empty lot can be turned into a community garden. I also learned that there are other gardens in North Lawndale, but people in the community don't know that these gardens exists.

In addition, there were a lot of people I met this summer. There were a range of different people who I learned from, such as....

• Food Desert Researcher Mari Gallagher, who taught me about there different ways she collected data around Food Deserts.

• Community Organizer Ray Thompson taught me to look at life in my community a bit differently. "Don't look at a glass as half-emptied but look at it as half-filled. "

• North Lawndale Community Garder Green Youth Farm taught me a lot about food. It taught me that there are more options than junk foods. They also let met tastes a lot of different fresh herbs and organic berries.

Another Final Reflection on the Summer

This summer we have decided to do something about the lack of organic foods in the North Lawndale community. So far we have gain some forms of improvement with a little help of collaboration with two other organizations by the name of Green Youth Farm and Mikva. We hope we will have a positive outcome on this year's community participation.

A Day with Mikva, by Shanobia Davis

During my internship at Community Builders we met up with another community organization by the name of Mikva. For an icebreaker both Community Builders and Mikva grouped up together to complete an activity. Our activity was to use marshmallows and toothpicks to make the tallest and sturdiest building. Then they split us up into groups. But before we could start the activity we had to answer a few questions about what our organization is trying to accomplish this summer. Mikva was working on trying to change the structure and values of the Chicago Public School system, and we were trying to make people aware of the food desert that is in our community. We exchanged information about our research, we filled out each others surveys, and we explained to each other the importance of what we were trying to accomplish this summer.

Summer Filming, by Marquita Baber

What was happening in this image, we were outside learning how to use the camera. Interviewing each other about the food desserts in our community. Seeing that the issue is a problem and what we can do to help change that to make our community more healthy. the reason we use cameras this summer is to help us get our message across because we thought that would be much easy if people really look at our documentary on video, than on paper they would like it better.