Community gardens, food pantries head off COVID food catastrophe in St. Louis
Activists praise local efforts while calling to ‘systemic’ solutions
Karen Robinson-Jacobs | The St. Louis American Nov 19, 2021 Updated Nov 19, 2021
On a crisp late summer morning, 65-year-old Army veteran Nancy Vonner walked the five blocks from her home in a North St. Louis neighborhood marked by pawn shops and boarded up homes to the St. Augustine Wellston Center, a long-time community fixture that’s part thrift shop, part food pantry… Everybody knows I’m the struggling granny,” Vonner said, explaining a car wreck a year ago left her once able-bodied son paralyzed, forcing her into the role of being a caretaker for the son and his passel of children, including a set of triplets. “I come here once a month. I’m working with whatever I get.”
… Wellston, one of the dozens of food pantries across the St. Louis metro area, joins a growing number of community gardens as part of a homegrown response aimed at heading off a major food catastrophe that loomed when the deadly coronavirus shuttered businesses and schools across the region.
… Just as it laid bare decades-old inequities in health care, the 20-month pandemic, which swelled the ranks of the unemployed, exposed holes in the nation’s food safety net. In 2020, one in four Black residents across the U.S. experienced food insecurity — more than three times the rate for white households — according to Feeding America, the nation’s largest charitable hunger-relief organization.
Where are the grocery stores?
When residents in low-income areas talk about the lack of access to healthy foods, it’s usually related to the absence of major grocery stores within walking distance or on convenient bus lines.
More here
http://www.stlamerican.com/news/local_news/community-gardens-food-pantries-head-off-covid-food-catastrophe-in-st-louis/article_681df450-49a3-11ec-a791-0bfbf2a2e91b.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
food desert is an area that has limited access to affordable and nutritious food, in contrast with an area with higher access to supermarkets or vegetable shops with fresh foods, which is called a food oasis. Wikipedia
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https://theconversation.com/why-community-owned-grocery-stores-like-co-ops-are-the-best-recipe-for-revitalizing-food-deserts-122997
on edit , i read the whole article . local solutions .
