Community Food Navigator - Winter 2022 Update

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As the year comes to a close, we at the Community Food Navigator hope you are well and would like to take a moment to reflect on the past year and express our gratitude.

Since spring this year, our community Stewards co-designed and activated our mission to support connection and collaboration among the people, communities, and organizations working to strengthen a more equitable and just Chicago region community-led food ecosystem. We have much to celebrate!

A New Addition to Our Community:

We are excited to welcome Lisa Tallman as the Community Food Navigator's next Project Executive Director to lead us into the next era of our growth and activation. Lisa gifts us with a combination of spirit, intellect, and experience in the social sector across strategy, learning, impact measurement, change management, and technology - all exactly the capabilities to support and nurture this project's growing team, evolve our community stewardship to the next level of ownership and accountability and build the infrastructure to sustain our collective efforts for years to come.
We are grateful for and celebrate Deepa Gupta's profound leadership in launching and co-creating our community-powered project. For the past two years, working alongside community Stewards, co-founders, and the project team - her leadership and vision for principled, values-driven, equitable, just, and participatory project development has set a vision for a more accountable, resilient, and connected Navigator community. We share our deep gratitude to her and all that she has contributed.

Our progress in 2022:

We co-created and activated the Community Food Navigator App - a collaborative hub by and for growers and local food organizers to strengthen connections to people, knowledge, and information and demonstrate the vibrancy of our food ecosystems.
The Navigator App now has more than 150 "Seed Starters," a community of food growers, producers, local mobilizers, and educators who are the first users and digital community activators!
We spent the summer and fall cultivating relationships, receiving feedback, and forming new digital connections. Click here to watch a short video and see what we were able to co-create with our community of Seed Starters this summer!
We launched our in-person community Gatherings with Cedillo's Fresh Produce and El Paseo Community Garden. Community Food Navigator Gatherings create space to catalyze relationship building and knowledge sharing, bring visibility and connection to each other and lean into collective joy and mutual care in our urban ag community.
We thank all our communications, technology, and fiscal sponsorship partners who supported our growth this year!

Growing Our Community in 2023!

In support of the work of community food practitioners, we will be expanding our digital and in-person community and activating spaces for knowledge sharing, equitable participation, relationship building, and collective care.
With our community Stewards, we will co-develop collaborative governance practices for the project, and its tools, information, and resources.

Exciting updates about the growth and strengthening of our mighty team.

Bahati Aimee was promoted to the Managing Director of Community Engagement this fall. This spring, our team grew to include the talents and gifts of Marilyn Catinella, our Operations Director, and our Project Coordinators, Laura Aguilar and Sydney Coyle, all of whom have been working together and building and supporting the project's operations and community.
Our team continues to grow! You can check out our open Full Stack Developer position and share it with your networks.

What can you do to join our movement as we continue to build at the pace of community trust thoughtfully:

Send us your ideas, thoughts, and questions - we are always listening and learning - info@communityfoodnavigator.org.
Please share this message with others interested in receiving our updates and participating in our upcoming community conversations.

We are grateful for your continued interest in and support of the Community Food Navigator. We hope you have a wonderful and restful holiday season and the end of your year. We look forward to building community with you in the New Year!

With gratitude,

Community Food Navigator Project Executive Director, Project Team, and Advisory Board

About the Community Food Navigator:

Community Food Navigator supports connection and collaboration among the people, communities, and organizations working to strengthen a more equitable and just, rich Chicago region food ecosystem.

Our mission is to expand food sovereignty—particularly in Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities—by engaging Chicago-area growers and food producers; strengthening connections and collaboration; telling more truthful stories about the Chicago food system; and redistributing power.

With much gratitude to our Community Stewardship Ring:

Stewardship Pod:

Orrin Williams, Center For Urban Transformation

Anton Seals & Jennifer Stewart - Grow Greater Englewood

Pastor Reshorna Fitzpatrick, North Lawndale Greening Committee & Stone Temple Baptist Church

Angela Taylor, Garfield Park Community Council & Garden Network

Bweza Itaagi & Mecca Bey - Sistas in the Village

Weslynne Ashton & Howard Rosing, Midwest Collaborative for Equity, Research, and Food Justice

Rodger Cooley, Chicago Food Policy Action Council

Camille Kerr, Upside Down Consulting

Robin Cline & Ben Helphand, Neighborspace

Jose Oliva, HEAL Food Alliance

Erika Allen, Urban Growers Collective

Digital Steward Pod:

Safia Rashid, Your Bountiful Harvest Family Farm

Dulce Morales, Cedillo’s Fresh Produce

Lucia Leon, Lightly Farmed

Mike Tekh Strode, Kola Nut Collaborative

Dakarai Howard, Chicago Food Policy Action Council

Siobhan Beal, Urban Growers Collective

Clarence Smith, One Family Farms LLC

Malik Inkatha

Ticina Williams, Hyde Park Farmers Market

Jennifer Stewart, Grow Greater Englewood

Communications & Engagement Pod:

Nick Davis

Stef Funk, Chicago Food Policy Action Council

Courtney Moran, Urban Growers Collective

Orrin Williams, Center for Urban Transformation

Anton Seals, Grow Greater Englewood

All featured photography: Davon Clark (https://www.daybydavon.com/)