hello and welcome to today's webinar Vision to action the power of Partnerships to end Hunger and build Healthy Communities for all I'm Rachel forensic a director for the non-infectious disease programs department at the CDC Foundation we're so glad you're here for the kickoff of The Hunger nutrition and health action collaborative before we dive into our program here are a few housekeeping items to keep in mind today's webinar is scheduled for 75 minutes we hope you'll be able to stay for the e
ntire time it will be recorded we will share the recording with everyone who registered for the webinar it will also be linked on our website impact hunger. org we know there are many experts in the room and we hope to learn from you and create a space for you to learn from each other please use the chat to share comments and conversations with other participants at the end of the webinar we'll ask you to tell us what you learned and what you'd like to learn more about after today's webinar you
can share any of these aha moments in the chat in real time use the Q&A feature to send questions to the webinar staff and presenters due to the large number of participants we may not be able to answer all of your questions live but we will provide contact inform information for you to get in touch with us afterward if we don't get to your question let's get started with our first Zoom poll Zoom poll number one that should be coming up on the screen great what type of organization do you repres
ent please take a moment to select one Community neighborhood based nonprofit National nonprofit corporation or for-profit business Foundation philanthropy academic University Health System payer trade Association professional association local government state government federal government or not app applicable if you don't fit into any of these we'll give folks just another second to put that in okay I think we're ready to close the first poll let's look at the results to get a better sense of
who is here today with us it looks like we have the most representation from uh Community neighborhood-based nonprofits and National nonprofits great to have you all here with us today it is now my pleasure to turn things over to our president and CEO Dr Judy Monroe for welcoming remarks Judy it's all yours well thank you and welcome everyone it's it's terrific to see everybody in the chat from all over the country uh so keep keep letting us know who you are um so I'm Dr Judy Monroe as you hear
d I'm president CEO of the CDC Foundation the CDC Foundation if you're not familiar with us we're an independent nonprofit We were created back in 1995 by Congress to help bring together the public and private sectors and build Partnerships that save and improve millions of lives in the United States and around the world our collaborations with the Centers for Disease Control and prevention and private and philanthropic Partners help create greater impact than any one entity can do alone so thro
ughout the years we've raised and supported and launched more than 1,400 programs to take on complex health challenges and helped CDC and partners including the Public Health Community protect the health Safety and Security of people in America and around the globe today we're here to launch the hunger nutrition and health action collaborative a strategic partnership Network that will harness the power of collaboration to drive actions to end Hunger and build healthy communities in the United St
ates while the effects of hunger can impact any American the toll from Hunger is not distributed equally hunger and food insecurity disproportionately impact underserved communities communities of color low-income families and Rural Americans so since 2022 the CDC Foundation has engaged Partners in a comprehensive approach that has secured more than1 billion dollar in public private commitments in support of the White House's National strategy on Hunger nutrition and health the CDC foundation's
proud to lift up the work of others in this space and to act as a convenor to bring together others that understand the fundamental role food plays in promoting health and preventing disease I'm very pleased to extend a special thank you to the White House domestic policy Council team and who we've had the honor to partner with and work with uh on the White House challenge to end Hunger and build uh Healthy Communities last week the White House announced 141 new bold commitments from stakeholder
s Across the Nation who are making significant commitments to address this strategy through the hunger nutrition and health action collaborative we will harness the power of Partnerships to continue the momentum I'm very grateful to the more than 200 Community State and national leaders who are making big and bold commitments in this effort our commitment to end Hunger and improve the health of our communities is multifaceted today is one example of our Focus to bring people together to lift up
examples of impact to address the challenges to end Hunger and improve nutrition and health we're actively working with many partners to bring together an action collaborative that draws together all the energy and wisdom and creativity that you all have these individuals organizations and others engaged in the collaborative will identify share and leverage Innovations best practices and standards to collectively work to end Hunger so thank you today for engaging with us together we can make a m
eaningful and measurable impact to end Hunger and build Healthy Communities so Rachel back to you thanks Judy what a great way to kick us off today now let me take a few minutes to run through the agenda agenda for our time together the CDC Foundation has been honored to partner with the White House domestic policy Council since September 2022 to help secure over 200 commitments as a part of the White House challenge to end Hunger and build Healthy Communities but the work is only beginning and
today is just the start in a few moments we'll hear from staff at the White House who have led this work kellyanne blazic Gina Plata o and will mckinty next we will then hear about progress on the White House challenge commitments we'll be joined by my colleague from the CDC Foundation darnisha tabore after that we are excited for a robust conversation moderated by Dr Monroe and leaders representing several organizations who made significant and Innovative commitments to the White House challeng
e jopia Pastor Linda Zambrano and latata Horus Deb co-directors of the fresh food Coalition in Washington state Nona yahia founder and CEO of vertical Harvest Farms and Dr shria Sharma professor at the University of Texas School of Public Health and co-founder of brighter bites it is now my pleasure to introduce Gina Plata n o senior policy advisor on nutrition and agriculture for the domestic policy Council of the White House Gina thanks to you and Kell to you kellyanne and will for being here
today please take it away thank thank you Rachel and really our gratitud cl to you and your organization thank you so much Dr you and your team are incredible and it's been such a pleasure to work with all of you um we are truly grateful for all of the work that you did and help us accomplish the president's goal and putting us on the right path as you mentioned um to everyone at the historic White House conference on Hunger nutrition and health hosted by the president on September 28 of 2022 he
announced the of ending hunger and it's an ambitious goal but is a doable goal um with what he set out in the National strategy his goal is simple and and it's something that we can all do together which is reduced diet related diseases by 2030 and then hunger um all wild clothing disparities among the communities that are impacted the most which is really important um to make sure that we're addressing all of these inequities at that Strate at that conference as Dr Monroe mentioned he announce
d the national strategy on how we were going to do this it set out aook of how the president intends to meet this goal and it sets out a call for a PO of government approach to address hunger and we are doing this through specific policy actions and five main pillars pillar one improving food access and affordability pillar two integrating nutrition and health pillar three empowering old consumers to making have access to healthier choices pillar four physical activity parole pillar five enhance
d nutrition and food security research and since the conference the Administration has made and continues to make significant progress in implementing the national strategy and like Dr Monroe said just a few seconds ago last week we had the great privilege to announce the outcome of the March 2023 uh White House challenge to en hunger and build healthy communities and I want to invite my colleagues kellyanne and and will to jump in and justment about the work that is being done within the nation
al strategy and the White House challenge thanks Gina um and thank you for joining today everyone um I also want to give a special thank you to Dr Judy Monroe and Sharon paulen and really the entire CDC Foundation team for being such incred in credible Partners since we kicked this off in 2022 we really couldn't do this work without you so thank you for being uh through us with this all I just want to Echo what Gina mentioned about the president's commitment to implementation of the national str
ategy we're full steam ahead on taking action as the federal government and truly appreciate your continued partnership um especially through this new action collaborative we've heard from many of you that you're eager to learn from one another to build off each other's successes and to make progress towards the president's goals um so we're excited to continue partnering with you and and see how you're implementing your commitments um as we go forward with that I will turn it over to will thank
you Kellen and and and I just wanted again Echo uh the the thanks uh to uh the CDC Foundation especially for for being such uh great partn is really excited to see uh the work that this action collaborative uh does and the accomplishing uh what Gina laid out as the president's goal of ending hunger and reducing diet related Disease by by 2030 um and and also I just want to Echo the thanks to everyone on this call every organization who has uh made a commitment as as a part of this work um you k
now really the the White House Challenge and hunger and build Healthy Communities is is really uh you know designed around the the the idea that you know we we can't uh as the federal government uh uh tackle these issues alone and and we need a whole of society approach to this and so the commitments that each of you have have made will will help us uh to to get even closer to achieving that goal and we're so appreciative of um really every sector of of Civil Society stepping up in the ways uh t
hat you have and we're excited about uh this action collaborative is an opportunity to build off of that that work and uh and and to uh coordinate and collaborate across uh the the organizations that and communities that have made commitments as a as part of the White House Challenge and and earlier uh through the commitments made ahead of the White House conference on Hunger nutrition Health as uh Kellan and Gina both mentioned uh we continue to to work hard on implementing the national strateg
y on hunger and nutrition and health so really excited thank you all for joining this call thank you all for your commitments and and and your commitment to uh this work and uh we'll turn it back to CDC Foundation thank you so much thank you so much will uh Gina and kellyanne um I know we all really appreciate your leadership um there at the White House so again thank you it's now time uh for poll number two if we could have that uh Gina mentioned um the various pillars of the national strategy
and so now we'd like to know which if any of the Five Pillars from the national strategy on Hunger nutrition and health describes your work and you can select more than one improve food access and affordability integrating nutrition and health Empower all consumers to make and have access to healthy choices support physical activity for all enhance nutrition and food security research and if you couldn't find something there you can always pick not applicable or none of these we'll give folks ab
out five more seconds and we can have the results Great a lot happening in those top two but really A Lot happening everywhere great thank you so much for filling out that poll and now it is my pleasure to introduce darnisha tabore who is an evaluation specialist for the non-infectious disease program department at the CDC Foundation to discuss updates on the progress of commitments darnisha thanks Rachel and hello everyone as shared by Dr Monroe give me one second as shared by Dr Monroe in the
White House do domestic policy Council to catalyze action for the millions of Americans living with food security and diet related diseases the Biden Harris Administration launched a transformational call to action for ending hunger and reducing diet related diseases by 2030 while lessening disparities among among communities impacted the most the call to action has brought organizations ACR has brought in organizations across uh the public and private sectors since and since the Inception of ca
ll to action the CDC Foundation has served as a partner in gathering new commitments and also tracking the progress of ongoing commitments next Slide the work being done through these commitments represents a cohort of change agents who are working to strengthen Health Systems generate new research and mobilize Partnerships to increase access to Social Services healthy food nutrition education and physical activity and community ities living with food insecurity and as a result most at risk for
chronic illnesses the work being done through these commitments again will continue up to 2030 next slide as I shared previously the CDC Foundation has played a role in tracking the commitments and across phases 1 through three there have been over 200 commitments um across the public and private sector 51% of the commitments have have a nationwide Focus 33% a regional andity 16% are at the local municipality level next slide from our tracking we also learned that the commitments represent a div
erse group of actors 35% of commitments have been made by nonprofits followed by 26 made from the private sector and 133% from government agencies primarily local agencies the remaining commitments came from universities other organizations and Health Systems in July 2023 in collaboration with the White House domestic policy Council the CDC Foundation launched the partner commitment survey 2 to capture progress of this of 68 organizations who had approved commitments at that time from February 2
023 to July 2023 the survey sought to capture their progress feedback from organizations on the type of support if any they would need to keep their commitments moving forward um and just to catch any other insights from their work 50 out of the 68 organizations responded to the survey which was great and the majority of the responses came from corporations and National nonprofits foundations trade associations community- based organizations Health Systems and academic institutions as well as go
vernment agencies were also represented in the survey responses next organizations were asked how much progress they've made toward their commitment and the overwhelming majority um 92% share that their commitments are on track to be completed by their set deadlines or have already been completed next I'll be sharing a few examples of how the commitments are already making a huge impact the partnership for healthier healthier America in the Boys and Girls Club of central Mississippi is committed
to expanding on the good stuff kiosk program which was launched as a pilot in Jackson Mississippi in planata California funded by the sedexo stop hunger foundation and Dole package Foods the good stuff Kias has an assortment of key staple items both shelf stable and refrigerated and priced for families and underresourced communities and they're Lo and these and these kios are located at Community hubs where they're already going to pick their children up at after school activities and the kios
is also combined with nutrition skill education through cooking classes these kids uh cooking classes teaches baking and cooking healthy recipes to increas the intake of fruits and veggies and the recipes also make it easy for the kids to bring these these recipes home with their families so that they can make them together with their parents or Guardians this type of partnership is really exciting to see in the lives of children next slide next um in September of 2023 the eat learn play Foundat
ion announced their ambitious plans to partner with the Oakland Unified School District and Kaboom to transport 25 Schoo yards throughout Oakland by the end of 2026 as a part of as part of an effort to give Oakland kids access to safe and Quality quality places to play um and to play in their neighborhoods excuse me Kaboom and the eat learn play Foundation share the same goal of expanding access to safe and kid-friendly options for physical activity which is really transformative for communities
next slide and lastly I'll be highlighting the Nubian markets which is based out of Boston Boston Medical Center provided a $1 million loan to Nubian markets a curated Market Cafe and Gathering Place celebrating the African diaspora through food led by a team of black Muslim entrepreneurs the co-owners Drew on their African-American and East African routs as well as their Muslim faith to create food options that would resonate with the people in their diverse neighborhood the funding is part of
the Boston Medical Center's overall commitment to addressing social determinants of Health which are non-medical factors in people's lives that affect their health outcomes deeply Partnerships such as these are great examples of innovative Food Solutions that are making a huge impact in the communities that they're serving the CDC Foundation looks forward to BR to to continue to being a partner in this work and thank you for the opportunity to highlight some of this amazing work today over to y
ou Rachel thanks and darnisha before you go anywhere we want to just make sure uh see if anybody has any questions for you I know someone did ask uh in the questions if this data is uh being available and my understand if we're going to make this available and my understanding is we do have this uh executive report uh available on our website impact hunger. org and we can also put these slides there is that correct yes that's correct we're excited to share this amazing work and happy to answer a
ny other questions as well I know the uh CDC foundation will also be uh looking at tracking commitments going forward uh and while there was a question about what the timing of that would be um we're not exactly sure so we do hope that um you will folks will put their give us send their emails to us so we can keep them updated uh through periodic communication ah someone is asking what CDC stands for shall I jump in and mention the CDC is the Centers for Disease Control and prevention uh and we
are the CDC Foundation which is a nonprofit that helps de develop public private Partnerships uh in support of much of the work that the CDC does and apologies that we didn't say that earlier yes thanks Rachel sure and I see there's some other questions in the chat around recipes for the the cooking classes um for the Ki I'm not certain on that but I can get that information uh for folks and maybe we can send that in the followup great um we do have um a place on our website where we have resour
ces and stories from the field um and that will also um be a great place for us to put things like this um links to what folks are doing out in the community definitely darnisha um Carla's asking if you're favoring locally grown produce for the kiosks personally um I so I can't speak specifically to what the the good stuff kios is but I know there is a specific feature uh of that work on the website that shares about um where they're sourcing that food fantastic thank you thanks Carla all right
um darnisha thank you so much for for that presentation uh and again we will make sure we have um the URL in the chat for folks to access the uh executive report um of this so thank you so much thanks now we um we're going to turn to our next two polls so if those can come up poll number three what would be most helpful to accelerate your work you can select more than one of these funding to work across sh sector s access to specialized resources capacity building and technical assistance expand
ed network of Partners and stakeholders transformative policy changes building public private Partnerships great you can take that poll down here are some results funding to work across sectors transformative policy changes is also high up there great these are all important thank you so much now we can move to um we have one more poll poll number four who would you like to partner with but are currently not and you can select more than one of these Community neighborhood nonprofit National nonp
rofit corporations foundations or philanthropy Academia Health Systems trade associations or professional associations local state or federal government agencies or none of the above okay I think we can go ahead and close this poll great um as we know for this to be uh for us to have this be a whole of society we really need all of these different uh sectors engaged in this work uh keep the chats active and send in your questions we're just getting warmed up um it's now my pleasure to turn thing
s over to Dr minroe and her awesome panel Judy thank you and it is an awesome panel I can't tell you how excited I am about this um so we're really thrilled to have the unique experiences and the perspectives of Partners who've stepped up to the challenge to end Hunger and improve the health of our communities through major Investments and Partnerships you're already making an impact so I want to Welcome to the panel uh Nona yahia CEO of vertical Harvest Farms Dr shria Sharma uh with brighter bi
tes uh jopia Pastor uh Linda Zambrano and latata horse de boy uh with fresh food uh Coalition for being here uh thank you in advance for sharing best practices and priorities that'll help activate more progress to helping the millions of people living with food insecurity and diet Rel ated diseases so let's kick off with our first question um tell us about the commitment because you all have all made commitment so tell us about the commitment you've made to the White House challenge to end Hunge
r and build Healthy Communities uh and let's start uh with uhh jopia and Linda or or latata uh so you guys go in whatever order take it away well um hello everybody thank you and um it's an honor to be here um we um are the fresh food Coalition and an organization that is actually led by three um nonprofits the national tribal Emergency Management Council uh farmer frog and uh the silent task force we have uh formed this partnership through the pandemic as we were servicing over 3 million people
in 38 States across this country uh with um food and um emergency supplies and um water and uh distributed um these um important um supplies and food in a very urgent way um in various uh Transportation Pathways we concluded that our efforts actually required um a more for noral Coalition and um in the past uh few years we have came to the understanding uh very intimately what the community's uh needs are and our commitment focuses um on the Pacific um Northwest the Pacific coast neighboring st
ates Alaska Northern California Idaho Montana Oregon and Washington we are um addressing all five of the pillars so um our commitment is um centered around um a holistic approach that addresses um all the issues that were put forth by the White House and um um it is um focusing on the most uh crucial missing elements of food sovereignty uh culturally relevant foods and um it is um post Harvest and processing that we Center our commitment on because what we have found is that the communities the
pipa communities the tribal communities The Immigrant and Refugee communities um the service um really have um no food sovereignty um and access to um relevant and um and um independent processing that's great thank you thank you anything uh from the others at this point anything more to add it might be muted there we go yes thank you thank you so much I I'd like to just reiterate what Sophia said um in regards to it being an honor to be here um we thank you uh for the original invitation and um
and we're really proud to be able to be here and share the work that we do today the um most important thing that I think that Sophia highlighted is that uh when we first all came together each of us as nonprofits had our our sector that we were serving but one of the things that we discovered was that by bringing the three of us together we became that course multiplier that was able to do so much more work we literally took one organization that was Distributing 35 million pounds of food to t
he three organizations um then Distributing more than 230 million pounds of food in a very short period of time and so what we saw was an opportunity to partner with other uh like-minded organizations through this Coalition here um that perhaps we could find Partners in which we could again become Force multipliers and be able to really exponentially grow the work that we're currently doing when we see those numbers that are escalating in regards to um uh food insecurity we all have that common
goal to reduce food insecurity uh coming from the bipo communities um us three ladies have a commitment uh to also do that though in a culturally appropriate and culturally sensitive way um one of the things that I I always like to share is a spefic specific example that just kind of drives the point home is that just in the last couple of years we had typhoon merbach hit our Alaska Villages and we had 67 Villages that literally flooded lost power lost their food stores and in the middle of wint
er and so if you can imagine waking up one day with no food and no way to be able to access food because you're in the middle of this typhoon it was very difficult for them and down in the lower 48 it was easy for people down here to immediately jump forward and say we can send you boxes of macaroni and cheese and we can send you jars of spaghetti sauce and we can make sure that you get foods but when you're talking to our Alaskan villagers they need things that are culturally appropriate like s
almon and seal oil and those are things that are a lot more difficult to get during those times and so um our commitment has been to look at each of our communities from that cultural lens and making sure that we're bringing forward culturally appropriate foods to um to our communities and uh so with that I will um pass the Baton over to Lon and uh and again thank you everyone for um for inviting us and for having us to be here as guests today thank you Linda um I'm latata Hub um founder and exe
cutive director of the silent task force and I'm honored to be here today especially with my um teammate Ates my colleagues and you know Linda it's a lot to follow what you just gave it was just amazing and you just hit every nail on the head about the work that we collectively do and we do culturally um specific for communities that we all serve we live in a very diverse um part of the country and we serve a lot of people that all deserve to be fed and all deserve to be you know healthy and wel
l and um we have seen uh through covid but prior to covid food insecurity existed it wasn't um like oh it just happened when covid happened um it just exacerbated an already um historic issue in bipac communities and so um it just it it it put a spotlight on what already was um and it encouraged the partnership uh because what is realized is that one organization alone cannot do it it requires folks with the like mind with a heart to serve who've already been serving of course a lot of folks sta
rted serving during that time and that's a great thing because they want to serve of to a greater cause they want to help folks who are in need and we all know that so many people were and so it's just an honor to work alongside these incredible ladies and the teams that they lead uh to to do the work in the community um I represent a community that is uh disenfranchised as well um it is the African-American Community we are the last blackest part of Seattle washingon to date it we have been dis
placed and genified completely out of our um cultural homes ancestral areas where we have lived for generations and so with that displacement comes hunger comes homelessness um and a host of other needs that we're all facing it's not just in this community and so that's what's so important about our Partnerships is that we can see across the board for all of our communities the things that are happening that are impacting all all of our communities in the same way and and we may be speaking of d
ifferent cultures but it's the same social societal issues and so um it's it's just uh food sovereignty is what we need it's where we want to be um it's kind of like a participatory design situation where you know the community gets to say what they need and what they want and having the government say yeah um the community does deserve that and we can let the community decide where these public dollars and funds go to right and making those decisions and and and ensuring that Community has a ha
nd in lifting itself up in a positive way because there's a lot of struggle um and there's a lot of resilience in the struggle and everything costs nothing is free right and so we've seen many of our Farmers lose their farms and bipac Farmers right people who been doing this work for some time and that's been hard it's been um actually a bit of trauma associated with that because it's like it's the same old thing it's just a different day and it's just a different time in history but this is not
a new thing once again so um we're just honored to be here and I'm I'm so um honored to stand beside these two amazing amazing leaders um I learned so much from them and um it's it's just an honor to be here and I thank everybody so thank you well thank you talk about Force multiplier and you all have really given us an example of what that means uh so I'd like to turn now Nona uh tell us tell us about your commitment uh and then we'll go to to uh shria well thank you so much Dr minroe I am so
pleased to be here and honored to be here with all this panel of amazing women uh March is for women so this is I think really appropriate and the Fred the fresh food Coalition I can't wait to work with you so I'm Nona Yahya I'm a CEO and co-founder of vertical Harvest Farms so we're a controlled environment uh farm so an indoor farm and we're hyper local so what does that mean we feed locals first so you can see why I'm excited to get to know the ladies before me instead of building Farms on th
e outskirts of cities which is where we've seen the indoor farming industry really go with no real connection to the consumer we build right in the heart of the urban center to reestablish that vital connection between farmer food and those we feed like all of us here I know that we share this deep held belief that good food is a fundamental human right so with our farms at scale which we're right now expanding across the country we started in Wyoming we're building one in Maine all places with
a very short growing season get that get their food imported from out umide mostly from California and Arizona and Mexico were replacing two and a half million pounds of produce in order to facilitate our Comm our commitment to support institutional efforts to respond to the demand for local food across all consumer channels so this isn't only about retail it's about our anchor institutions our schools feed our children K through 12 the higher education hospitals who desperately need a consisten
t source of local food at volume so we're getting we're participating with uh trials in our farms in tastings in nutritional trials getting kids hooked on good food in our farm here in Wyoming we do tours and our favorite thing is when a a child will bring their parent to to the farm and say this is my favorite type of microgreens microgreens can have up to 40 times the nutritional equivalent of their adult counterpart so imagine the sea change of nutrition if we can pull off that kids are reall
y actively trying to find where can they purchase microG grain we're farmed a fork in 24 hours most of us eat lettuce that travels 2,000 miles to get to the plate that we have it's not worth it nutritional or tast value so this enables us to deliver food at the peak of its flavor and nutrition year round so we're not just feeding people but feeding them well so we've also committed in addition to our uh customers to sending a percentage of our produce directly to the charitable food system so th
e work that a lot of you do I saw all of you coming on to the panel it's really exciting to to be able to uh lead on with all of you and answer your questions these organizations recognize that no one should wonder where their next meal is coming from but we're also saying that these meals should be the best that they can be we've partnered with the Food Bank of Wyoming and the Food Bank of Wyoming never had access to produce to Fresh Produce to be able to deliver to Wyoming Wyoming is a food de
sert and we've been able to bolster the local food economy at scale through our commitment and we're just so grateful to have the opportunity to do so thank you thank you shria over to you yeah gosh uh what an exciting group this is a this is fantastic thank you so much for the opportunity to be here uh I also want to take a moment to give a shout out to my colleagues at the University of Texas School of Public Health and brighter bites and Planet Harvest and um others who are uh part of our com
mitments to the white house uh so you know I I sit here in front of you guys but this is really a team effort right none of us do this alone and I love love the term Force multiplier because that's really where the magic happens um so you know at we actually made three commitments to the white house uh in the space uh our Center for Health Equity at the University of Texas School of Public Health is really focused on um how can we create Sustainable Solutions uh to address this very sticky issue
of food Equity right um and so our first commitment is to bring build a really strong infrastructure um of Technology capacity of care coordination between health care and social services so that our patients can actually receive the services they need that they referred to so a patient that's referred to receive a food prescription program well how do we know that they're actually going to get it and so we're building out that uh core infrastructure we're leveraging our health information exch
ange that has a master patient index of 16 million patients and we're starting there uh to then um scale this technology infrastructure uh throughout our region uh our second uh commitment is uh falls in the space of food is medicine um and it's it's in partnership with Planet Harvest uh to really Implement evaluate and and scale a robust produced prescription approach for pregnant moms and uh you know I live in Houston Texas and Texas as as we all know unfortunately has some of the highest mate
rnal mortality rates for our black women and it's just unacceptable and we need to do we just need to do better and so uh really uh addressing those uh you know root causes associated with poor outcomes during pregnancy is what we're trying to get at and then last but not least I'm also co-founder of rer bites which is a it's a national nonprofit uh that combines access to Fresh Produce uh with nutrition education um through schools and and um uh and also our uh Health System partners and so wha
t we're committing to do is uh partner with school-based health centers um and uh we're starting with the Legacy Community Health which is a federally qualified uh um Health Center that has U uh school-based health clinics all around our greater Houston region so we are starting there um and we want to implement a home delivery based uh produce prescription approach combined with again a robust nutrition education model teaching our kids how to and our families you know how to use the produce th
at they're getting converting those food into culturally relevant tasty meals uh so that kids uh everywhere and these are Medicaid eligible kids um Can Eat uh healthy tasty meals uh so those are our three commitments to the White House that we're very excited to share that's awesome well all of you are remarkable uh let me just say so Noah I want to come back to you for a minute I I heard a lot of things in your description of your remarkable work uh things that are different and unique but do y
ou want to expand on other things maybe that might come to mind that are unique about what you're doing and why it's important yeah you know Dr Monroe I'm I'm An Architect by trait and so I've always that's youri right there architect turned farmer so I've always believe that design can be a powerful instrument for change right and so how do we look at the fabric and the infrastructure of our cities to address you know some of the inequities that we've all discussed here right and and how can we
improve that and how can we especially address people on the margins we must you know and this is what the white house challenge is all about we must uh really look at what our 21st century problems are so we really see this indoor Farm as a new type of Civic infrastructure that utilizes food to solve multiple problems simultaneously so yes we're investing in certain climate ad adap adaptation strategies that will help our food system be more resilient because we're already seeing the stress im
pacting yields you know the way we grow food right now is neither stable nor resilient as we've prioritized quantity over quality but we've not seen anywhere near what's going to come right so we need Innovation we need strategies but climate change isn't just an environmental issue it's a social justice issue it's a public health issue and it's an economic resiliency issue so we're a private sector business that lies at the intersection of these issues with the intent of developing a more inclu
sive form of capitalized of capitalism so as we combat food insecurity what other problems can we solve in our cities where our Farms are placed we have more jobs than traditional the the traditional labor market can fill there's another labor pool that feels entirely left out of the opportunity across the country people with disabilities suffer an average of 80% unemployment rate they're the largest minority at in the US and one that we could all become a part of at any time so can we the quest
ion we ask is open up the fastest growing industry and agriculture controlled environment uh farming to this untapped Workforce by focusing on ability by focusing on human potential so these Community needs are actually why we became vertical Farmers the technology is cool but that's our why we grow better food and Future where food not design is our medium for positive change by reconnecting the farm to the city we're reconnecting people to who their farmer can be 40% of our employees suffer so
me sort of physical or intellectual disability so with our work we've seen how our farm is a new type of infrastructure that embodies conscious and radical inclusion and really adapts to the community needs who are our underserved workers we're eliciting voice of all to cultivate and form a new and burgeoning industry but more than that we see our farm as critical to each Community Building its own strength so with this approach we differentiate differentiate ourselves within our industry but re
ally with the work that we do by building a brand that means something to you your family your neighborhood and your city and we feel that it will be valued like a public library or a community center in the future and that's where farms and the potential of food can lie that's amazing I mean that that's just amazing any reaction Linda you're I see your body language any any uh reaction from latata Sophia oh I concur 100% I mean I think that that's where the future lies and um and I and I think
it's absolutely wonderful that your background is is in uh architecture because uh how applicable is that to what we're trying to do I mean we're trying to build something and um and you know I always tell people we've got to have that strong Foundation or it all comes tumbling down and we've got to have a methodical way of approaching all this my backgrounds in biology and chemistry so I've got all that Science Background that's always going through my head and so and then again when we talk ab
out you know bringing together all of these different disciplines and all of these different uh levels of expertise in these different areas I think um is what really gives us our greatest strength and so we're not only bringing forth the diversity of food but we're also bringing forth the diversity of of our our skill sets and our levels of education and um and our expertise to to bring this project to fruition so um that would be my two cents to add so thank you presentation um yeah I'd like t
o add that um we have been working with um Murray helam and V Allen in um International and national projects and settings and have been working with vertical farming especially combined with aquaponics and uh growing food and uh Pro produce and protein in the same system so this is really interesting and um my back plan being in landscape architecture horiculture and uh Urban agriculture this is um very exciting and um I'm really looking forward to a lot of the collaboration that's possible fan
tastic fantastic um so shria I'm gonna turn to you let's come back to you now and what do you think's missing from the national discussion on Hunger health and nutrition right now yeah I mean it's such a great question um I I will tell you that I first want to acknowledge how energized uh I was to be at the White House Event last week and see familiar faces and partners around the country coming together uh you know those I started working in this space of food security when we didn't even have
a definition for it or knew how well how do you measure it um so we've come a long way and having uh you know 141 commitments exceeding $1.7 billion doll I mean that that is something so you know I think it's important to acknowledge um the this momentum and the movement you know to do this work together so um but having said that uh in answer to your question you know I think uh what we are hearing also from uh our colleagues here on this call is that um it takes us all right to address this th
e this issue about Hunger health and nutrition and there's never going to be a one shoe fits all uh approach um and so uh I'd like to see you know more approaches where healthc care social service agencies for-profit companies were developing these Solutions come together in that uh development uh I also want to see you know agriculture Growers at the table and part of our uh strategic plans you know while we we are talking here about how do we grow food there's also a flip you know the problem
that we have is oh billions of pounds of produce that's just left to die on the field that's nutritionally adequate right and uh so F I think there's also a a role for funders especially because a lot of the competition in this spa space is fostered because of funding right and so funders can foster Innovation through collaboration and have discussions on how can we create value proposition and business models across the Spectrum uh so that we can sustain and Implement these efforts because all
of them are going to be needed right whether we are tackling like with brighter bites we are tackling food waste we want to bring in produce that would otherwise be thrown away and channel it directly into the hands of communities that needed the most we need that solution too and we need climate we need we need to grow better smarter uh food to feed the masses so uh you know I'd like to see that discussion I'd also like to see how we can uh bring our community voice and Equity uh into the the c
onversation so that it's Central again uh you know our our patients and our uh communities that we serve really need to be at the center of these uh conversations uh that we're having um you know I I want to share a quick uh story um about the work we're doing with brighter bites uh you know brighter bites again as I mentioned we're trying to channel produce as much as we can uh uh that would otherwise be thrown away and bring it directly into the hands of families that need it the most we have
a very uh uh evidence-based formula that consists of produce distribution nutrition education uh using culinary nutrition approach um and but we do it all through Partnerships writer Byes is not own so we we we serve about 60,000 plus families every week around 12 US regions at this point uh we're partnering as I mentioned with clinics and schools uh but we've done it without a single Warehouse or a single truck and that's only been possible through Partnerships we've partnered with Growers we p
artnered with Cisco foods for example uh you know who'll carry those pallets of produce from the grower Partners to the Food Bank uh who will then do the inventory and distribution of the produce to the schools where our staff you know will take it and send it home uh uh and go The Last Mile and and work with the families teaching them how to use it and then we monitor all of this in real time and measure impact I think the and that's where and we found that a lot of the value proposition is for
the partners as well is that not only is it Mission aligned but that they want know if their investment is having an impact and so that measuring of the impact has also been uh important as well in in creating these uh Partnerships not to mention there's a tax write off for the for-profit partners as well so I'll just stop there to to um you know but these are some of the thoughts and what I would like us to to discuss more very good Nuna quickly anything you would add that is missing from the
national conversation well I think you know shria you mentioned you know right now if we're each individual is working on these problems we move in inches together we can move in miles right and so these Partnerships are so important and and they have to be long-term Vision based right we we are look we are working on the now and the future at the same time and I think we have to be very intentional about the adoption of innovation and new technologies that we support and really understand the w
hy behind their adoption so for us you know Innovations in agriculture can help us destroy and dismantle perceptions and biases against people with disabilities this is very personal motivation for me I have a brother with disabilities and when my parents integrated to this country I from a very early age understood that what they could give me and what they could give him were very different so I was an advocate before I even understood what the word meant and people with disabilities um repres
ent 50% of those living in long-term poverty in the United States and there are you know limits into how much money they can actually make it's an enforcement of poverty right so how do we utilize technology to improve lives right so in this case vertical farming but also save money for our governmental institutions for our hospitals right for our health care um and really help our communities at the same time so for a very specific example our farmers at vertical Harvest before they started wor
king for us they were really relegated to what we call Food filth and flowers these are entrylevel positions right now we all have to start somewhere but the difference is that there was no path to Career Development so utilizing technology utilizing customization and adaptability and really focusing on ability we've now created people who are really leading the field by not only contributing the most valuable commodity to any Community healthy nutritious food but as we expand to Maine and Detro
it across the country which are in the next two Farms they will be our leaders and our teachers of tomorrow they will be leading this industry and representing careers there are populations across the United States that deserve this um this this wealth Gap this opportunity to close the wealth Gap and so we can do this if we have that long-term vision and are really intentional about how we use innovation and why we use it in our communities and in with our governmental support and our public pri
vate Partnerships so that's what I would add had a lot more I'll stay there thank oh thank you yeah so actually we're coming up on the end of our time this is just like flying by um so uh we'll I'll ask for a a short answers now because I want to get to all of you all on on a couple of last questions here um so so this question for all of you while diet related diseases are affecting Americans and access to nutritious Foods they're a challenge across our country we know that but what gives you h
ope that everyone can be healthy all right so I'm gonna I'm gonna start uh start with fresh food Coalition anyone yes I think um the greatest hope is um displayed right here in this meeting we have um an absolute awareness amongst a lot of the leaders in this country and uh professionals who are tied into to the food system who actually are um representing their communities who uh have lived experience um bipar Native communities immigrants refugees lgbtq the people who have been um minoritized
by um the institution and the system for way too long and uh this understanding as um latata had mentioned was really brought forth with the pandemic but we also understand that this is not a result of the pandemic and that Solutions must be holistic and um addressing the root causes so so seeing that and um seeing the excitement of coming together and um and working together even like with our Coalition we have we are three organizations leading this but we have hundreds of organizations who ar
e participating at various levels and um in this work and um that's um that's how we are um uh able to work together and and provide services Nationwide and um and have also International Partnerships this is a a very strong um uh hope for the future we also understand that um the US economy and the food system is also in organically part of the global economy and Global Food system food sovereignty um is a human right and that includes everyone on planet Earth and I think that youth in particul
ar uh are connecting in to this conversation now in larger numbers and our elders are able to actually share their wisdom and um these conversations and um and interactions are important and um focusing on the cultural relevance and traditions is a very important Pathway to Foster Suess so that's what um that's what I see every day and um it's it's really exciting it's just um and and again just this conversation right here in the last half hour was very powerful thank you yeah very much so shri
a what gives you hope I think conversations like this give me hope and I I really want to thank the CDC foundation for creating this space for learning uh and sharing and collaboration I think you know those of us who've been working in this space for a long time when we didn't even we were we felt siloed and and alone uh and so uh it's exciting to see how much is happening and we need to learn from each other and I also um my community and partners I'll be honest give me hope as well um one thi
ng I've seen which is uh amazing you know we everybody there's a realization that this is not an issue uh that any one organization can solve so by the nature of it people are coming together to collaborate and part of collaboration is sharing power and to see that um happening um is really exciting uh and and that's I think what gives me hope awesome Nona well I I concur with everything that was said but I think that you know um nourishment is such a powerful tool for building connection right
the fact that we're all recognizing that we're on a Tipping Point for food right the way that we truly connect as as sh just said is by helping each other Thrive and food erodes our differences right it gives us something to create and share together it literally F fuels us what we've found is that nobody can argue with food and jobs no matter where you are on the political Spectrum right and so that that fuels us and and you know I think that this approach has helped us align with national and
Civic Leaders with Municipal strategies with investment and development Partners um and suppliers to build a loyal customer base and that's all going to help us have a positive impact right but it's really the boots on the ground that that motivate me this is not for the faint of heart and I think Sophia you just said the young people right showing up every day right we're a female founded company and sha you said we've been stoed up until this point Thank you to everybody for bringing us togeth
er but you know people really show up for this effort right to show that what you can do through a vehicle and I think that you know when you see the impact the work has had on individuals that we work with from empowering first bank accounts signing Apartments reversing guardianships and resumés filled with experiences and green Tech you can see this that you are connected to doing something locally that has a global impact and so that is what keps keeps me getting up every day in this very dif
ficult time and challenging place but we see what it means very good very good okay my last question um this is so so what is something or someone that if we all listen to or red would transform our work or just make us all better humans so what are the best resources that you might recommend and so Linda I'm G to turn to you first podcast social media books people what what what what would transform our thinking oh goodness um well I think you better choose somebody else to start with I need to
think about that for a minute okay think about it shria yeah um I actually like to you know in my day job as a professor I have to do a lot of reading of you know these very exciting peer reviewed publication but what I what really has I I like to be in learning spaces and the space I I feel like I've learned a lot on my biggest growth has been actually learning from the space of doing of how business Works for-profit companies and bringing those learnings into the work that we're doing in the
nonprofit space so I I listen to a lot of pod Ted business podcasts for example I also um have learned a lot from um uh Adam Grant who is an organizational psychologist and um I forget is at work life but um uh it it just really I the work that we do can have a weathering effect um right and so uh I think uh uh having uh you know having the motivation to not just for yourself but for your team your community to keep moving forward and doing it in a way that's healthy is is important as well so I
've learned a lot from Adam Grant as well he's very good yes l l do you have one yes I absolutely do and I'm happy to share this um it's called the virtues project International uh virtues are the essence of who we are and they describe the world's sacred Traditions as the qualities of the Divine um and the attributes of the human Spirits I've been using the virtues since 2009 in every aspect of my life um virtues are the project is to practice of Virtues in everyday life by helping people of al
l cultures to discover the transformative power of these Universal Gifts of character so they're the spiritual life skills to help us live our best lives be the best person we can be to ourselves and to one another um I can honestly say it transform my life it's transform transformed the youth that I've worked with it's and they were kids that were incarcerated or at risk um also Elders um people who are just struggling in life and it's very basic but it's very true and and spiritual because it'
s it's not a religion it's just the virtues right the gifts of character and so if more people understood that or they already know it but you can call it what it is um and live by that then the more people are healthy healed and are willing to help one another so that's my offering thank you thank you uh Rachel do we have time for a couple more answers yeah please okay okay uh yeah I'm ready with my answer I I would go back perfect yeah you know because I was coming from it from a very differen
t perspective and um and from my perspective uh the people that that because I work with tribal communities I would say it's our tribal Elders that are the people that we we we rever in IND Indian Country we but we don't spend enough time sitting with them and listening to the stories because we we live in a society where we're all about instant gratification and we live at such a fast speed these days and the tribal Elders really operate at a much slower speed and they tell the story and if we
take the time to listen to the stories we learn so much from them and um so that that's kind of where I would be coming from on on this particular uh question um is taking the time uh to listen uh and not just to the tribal elders but Elders in many of the different cultures um I remember when I first started um Fe FEMA came out with their strategy four years ago and when they came out with the strategy they called it the culture of preparedness and I remember immediately writing back to them an
d saying you need to add an S after that word culture because we live in a country where there are so many different cultures and we try to approach what FEMA's doing on one culture of preparedness we will never succeed but if we listen to all of the different cultures that make up the fabric of this country then um I think we can have such greater success and so that would be um the way that I would approach that question th thank you for giving me a moment to Circle back on that absolutely wel
l well we need to take time right I mean we just said we we need to slow down sometimes a little bit Rachel I'm going to turn to you once again we have questions coming from the audience or or do we want to keep going with the we have so many questions but I did one question I do want to pose and if maybe one of you would want to answer it and those who if we don't since we don't have a lot of time if the others want to write some notes in the chat that might help but it's an important one um an
d it's from Diane and it is how are you engaging community members with lived experience to inform your programming I know all of you are but would would one or two of you say a a brief word about that I would like to speak to that if I could um I know we engage our community boots on the ground we have to um we our community is quite stigmatized and that um the resources we've been underfunded for a very long time and and the resources don't actually exist in the community so in order to get in
touch with the community and know what's going on you have to do Outreach and engagement we've done the Outreach engagement we have u a youth Workforce Development team and the young people of course with some of the other staff members go directly door too in different communities where we know there are Elders who cannot come to get a food box that cannot cook for themselves right so we go to those doors and we knock on the door and we ask people we do Outreach engagement surveys we've even d
one videos because so so many Elders lost so many friends and so to capture cultural history before they're all gone um we uh for so many of them are gone and we can't you know get that back we've been interviewing our elders and asking them about various things around recipes how many people that you know that they've been working with and helping the feed that have passed due to covid and just you know honoring them but also working with a lot of large families we have a lot of refugees and im
migrants in our state and we have to feed everybody we can't just say yeah we're culturally specific I only feed my own no we feed everybody body and so ensuring that we understand what those needs are and we have to be on the ground nobody's just going to give you that information so it's important to be amongst the community for the community to know that you're reliable you're consistent that you care you have compassion for this need and to provide more than food food is definitely a Lynch p
in but as someone was saying earlier there's a lot of Social Services that are needed and our community is on fire when it comes to homelessness when it comes to mental health when it comes to um drugs abuse when it comes to families being homeless and young people needing we have a unaccompanied minor issue that is ridiculous here that no one wants to talk about but these are kids between from kindergarten to 12th grade who are homeless and don't have anybody to accompany them so there's variou
s issues that impact the hunger issue and there are very is various issues that require Community to be present uh in Boots on the ground and providing these Services because there are too many gaps in services is once the money's gone this the the issue still exists and and and so it's incumbent upon Community to pull themselves to ourselves together to continue trying to provide the services that our community greatly needs so boots on the ground is is everything um communicating directly with
Community is everything because how else do you know what the needs of the people are I can't tell you based on just what I think I have to ask them and that is a constant ever growing volunteer opportunity hope hopefully we can hire you and get the funding to hire you you know constant conversation growing thing that happens as we build relationships in community because it's about relationships right and I'm gonna add to what latan you just said very quickly and keep it um kind of on the shor
ter side um but each and every single one of us as individuals are also teachers and we can take every opportunity every single day to train the community um and and and educate them in regards to the things that we're working on um we operate several different Community training opportunities from um free curriculum from Fimo which is the community emergency response team training we have this really cute program that we call the Bears and cubs Club where we bring in uh grandparents and youth a
nd we teach them about diabetic friendly foods and diabetes and um and we provide them with um not only the food but the recipes to go with the food to teach diabetic uh friendly um meals for for our families um we you know we have we tie it into our blockwatch program in every different um Avenue that we can we try to find a way to educate the community but again we're all individuals we're one person and so we put a really heavy emphasis on train the trainer yes we are trainers but we all have
a responsibility to train others to be trainers so that again we've got that Force multiplier that we're able to get out there and expens exponentially grow uh what we're attempting to do each and every single day and the more that we can work together as teams understanding that it's not about silos understanding that it's not about kingdoms or foms or you know any one individual person but it really is about the collective and the more that we can really showcase that people get excited and w
ant to be a part of that they want to be a part of the winning team and so if we can continue to uh really promote that winning team we're going to win and so um yeah so that's that's where you know we we definitely want to make sure that we're keeping that in mind each and every single day that as individuals we do have that responsibility uh to reach out and be the teacher every day I have to tell you I don't know when I've been with such energetic passionate smart um loving uh people as I hav
e as as all of the women as you said March is international women's uh month right it's so what a what a great month to have have this uh all allom panel if you will and uh thanks so much this has really been inspiring Rachel over to you I think we're in overtime we are in overtime but thank you so much this was really uh difficult to stop um we we really are coming into that tension of needing to take time um to listen and talk but also wanting to respect everyone's time so thank you for those
of you who are able to stay on a few more minutes um thank you again for such a lively conversation uh my colleagues are are going to put a couple questions into the chat if anyone wants to type them in wonderful or you could also tell us this when you uh fill out our evaluation that will come which we hope you will um and one is we'd love to know something you learned today uh and even more important we'd love to know something you'd like to learn more about after today's webinar so thank you s
o much um again thank you so much to to our guests today kellyanne Gina and Will from the White House um darnisha from CDC Foundation Nona jafia latata Linda shria um and of course Judy for your remarks um and and keeping this our panel um going and so so engaging what great conversation please stay up to date with our um with our progress um learn about future funding opportunities as well as other webinars and activities by going to our website impact hunger. org and S subscribing um we can't
thank you enough for everyone to everyone who spent the last 75 now almost 80 minutes with us um this is truly just the beginning of our work to end Hunger and create healthy resilient communities for all um again have a great have a great day and please stay in touch thanks so much
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