Bridging Research and Organizing – By building community gardens, farmers’ markets and other food system-related projects, Project New Village has planted the seeds of a movement that is transforming the way folks throughout the region and beyond see and relate to SESD. Thus, as the Good Food Legacies Initiative has developed, so has Co/LAB’s research/organizing process.
- When Project New Village launched the People’s Produce Project in 2008, they wanted to inspire their neighbors in Southeastern San Diego and the surrounding region to see their underserved community for its assets and strengths, rather than its vulnerabilities.
- In 2010, AL Anderson-Lazo began designing the Foodways and Foodscapes project to engage members of the community in participatory research. The aim has been to bring the wisdom and insights of community members organizing to reduce health disparities, improve healthy food access and spur economic development in Southeastern San Diego into closer conversation with academic inquiry and policy-making.
- In 2011, Co/LAB and the PPP began working together on the “Good Food Legacies” Initiative.Together, we began investigating the Story of Vacant Lots in SESD by identifying and collecting stories and making maps.
- As partners, we co-created the “Good Food Legacies” video drawing on ethnographic interviews, interactive google maps and the video-narrative process.
- And now we are building out the ‘Good Food Legacies StoryMap,’ using these same tools and efforts to help us all see vacant lots as opportunities to grow community from the ground up!
Explore the Good Food Legacies of SESD StoryMap Good Food Legacies StoryMap and perhaps you’ll be inspired to collect a story about food system change or create a StoryMap that reveals another set of relationships to the foodways and foodscapes of San Diego!