Closing the Healthy Food Gap in Rural Oregon

Closing the Healthy Food Gap in Rural Oregon

Activist Sharon Thornberry’s Quest to Empower Rural Oregonians to Reclaim Their Food System.

In Grant County, Oregon, it’s expensive to be poor.

The average cost of a meal in the county is $2.83, which is 23 cents higher than the state average in Oregon, according to a 2011 study by Feeding America. For a family of four, this comes to an additional $82 per month.

Combine the high cost of food with unemployment averaging more than 13 percent in 2011, and it’s easy to see why many of the 7,400 residents of this rural county tucked away in the mountains of eastern Oregon struggle against hunger. The food insecurity rate in the county is nearly 20 percent.

“There are a lot of isolated communities in Grant County that don’t have access to affordable, nutritious food,” said Sharon Thornberry, community resource developer for the Oregon Food Bank. Residents in the most isolated parts of the county face the choice of paying higher prices for food that is closer or driving the longer distance and paying more for gas. “There’s a Thriftway in John Day [the Grant County seat], but it’s 70 miles south, or they can go 100 miles north to the next closest grocery stores,” said Thornberry.

Through her work with the Oregon Food Bank, Thornberry is helping communities and towns across Oregon organize to increase their access to healthy, affordable food. This comes at a time when many groups around the country are reassessing their local food systems through a tool—the Community Food Security Assessment—offered on the website of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Advocates can use the tool to analyze their community’s food-related resources—from grocery stores to farms, soup kitchens, food pantries, and more—and evaluate residents’ access to affordable, nutritious food. The only problem, according to Thornberry, is that many of these assessments have been completed but are now sitting on the shelf. The challenge is moving from assessing the needs to organizing for action.

Thornberry developed an organizing process for Oregon’s communities called a Community FEAST (Food, Education, Agriculture Solutions Together). The idea is simple: bring together farmers, grocery store owners, emergency food providers, nutritionists, educators, community leaders, elected officials—as many stakeholders as possible—for a conversation about improving the local food system. At the end of the six-hour FEAST workshop, the seeds of a strategic organizing plan emerge.

One of the essential elements of the program is that it is led by a steering committee comprised of local stakeholders. “We [at the Oregon Food Bank] give advice,” said Thornberry, “but it’s the steering committee that continues the work long after the FEAST is done.”

The efforts pay off. For example, before Grant County’s FEAST in 2010, there was one emergency food pantry in the entire county and it was open only one day a month. Today, not only are there four food pantries, but a summer meals site, a community garden, and a farmer’s market have recently been added.

Across the state, the idea is gaining traction. So far, 18 communities in Oregon and towns along state borders have held FEASTS, and 18 more have been planned for 2011 and 2012.

The first FEAST was held in 2009 in Clatsop County in the northwestern part of the state. Afterward, advocates formed a nonprofit called the North Coast Food Web with the goal of sustaining the work of the convening group. A newly formed farmer’s market in the town of Astoria accepts SNAP benefits and has cooking demonstrations onsite. Workshops on seafood canning are also underway.

Elected officials are getting involved too. A city council member in the town of Klamath Falls came to the local FEAST and is now seeking grant funding to establish a downtown city food center. The entire city council of Forest Grove showed up for the community FEAST.

In 2009, Thornberry was honored as a Public Health Genius, an award given by the Oregon Community Health Partnership. She has her own personal experience of being hungry. In the late 1970s, she found herself homeless with two small children. “As a mother, there’s no worse feeling than not knowing what to feed your kids. My motivation for this work is that no one should have to be in that situation,” she said.

Matt Newell-Ching is an organizer in Bread for the World’s western regional office.