New Haven programs work to educate on sustainable food

By Megan Alderman-Person

What is sustainable food?

According to Emmet Hedin, the Yale Sustainable Food Program’s (YSFP) student manager and registered volunteer coordinator, it involves using farming techniques that enhance health, while still protecting our environment.

Hedin grew up on a farm in the Midwest and always knew he wanted to be a part of the sustainable food industry. However, Hedin said Yale’s effort is not restricted to people in the food and agriculture industry, but welcomes anyone who is interested in learning more about sustainable food.

“Our aim is to help food literacy leaders create conversations among students and other food leaders today to help people,” Hedin said. “[Members] can talk about issues they never even considered before and create a sense of community on campus.”

Another organization aiming to bring some clarity and organization to the food system is the New Haven Food Policy Council. Mark Firla, a member, said it is an umbrella organization that aims to tackle issues of food and social justice in New Haven. There are many different working groups within the council, each with a different agenda.

One of these groups aims to help with low-income food assistance in New Haven. The members helped to expand the Commodity Supplemental Food Program for the elderly into Connecticut.

According to the United States Department of Agriculture’s website, “The Commodity Supplemental Food Program works to help improve the health of low-income persons at least 60 years of age by supplementing their diets with nutritious food products.”

The YSFP is also involved with the off-campus community. It has volunteer opportunities on its one-acre farm, where New Haven residents, students and guests of the university can get their hands dirty.

The produce from the farm is sometimes sold at the Worcester Square Farmers Market, the Yale catering service, or to local restaurants.

The YSFP also uses the farm for the “seed to salad” program, in which students from public elementary schools in New Haven come to work with the soil.

“It’s important for these students to get exposure,” Hedin said. “They learn that lettuce doesn’t come from the aisle at Stop and Shop. It comes from the ground.”

Meghan Alderman-Person is a senior journalism major at Quinnipiac University. She is writing about food this spring. She can be reached at meghan.alderman-person@quinnipiac.edu.

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New position will tackle New Haven’s ‘food deserts’

By Melissa Barclay

When was the last time you went to the grocery store? How long did it take you? What was your mode of transportation?

Residents of New Haven’s Newhallville neighborhood can’t easily walk or take public transportation to a grocery store.

For many Americans, a trip to the grocery store is a leisurely task. But for others living in areas designated as “food deserts,” access to healthy food is limited. Instead of having access to nutritious food, residents are surrounded by fast food joints that are cheap and convenient but unhealthy.

Some sections in New Haven have been designated as food deserts by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Based on the CARE 2015 health survey, hunger rates within the city’s six lowest-income neighborhoods soar up to 40 percent. In addition to that, 7 out of 10 residents are considered overweight or obese due to the lack of nutritious food in their diet.

To try and address this issue, the New Haven Food Policy Council has created a new position – food system director – which will be responsible for coordinating events raising awareness about the issue.

According to the job posting for the position, the food director will be responsible for creating and implanting strategies that will decrease the lack of access to healthy food within New Haven and serve as a liaison between the city and the New Haven Food Policy Council.

The position has yet to be filled.

Resident Joanne Ndiaye and her family have struggled without convenient access to a local supermarket.

“[I’m] no stranger to the task of trying to keep a balanced, healthy meal on the table,” she said.

Ndiaye has been a resident of the Hill section of New Haven for the last 10 years.  She is also a single mother of five children, and a beneficiary of the SNAP program.

SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It is a government program providing food stamps to families who qualify.

“Like so many other families, we depend on SNAP benefits and food pantries to make ends meet from month to month,” Ndiaye said.  “There were times we were left to eat foods that were not balanced and healthy.”

Public transportation is an issue in New Haven’s Newhallville neighborhood. city buses do not travel directly to the supermarkets, and some residents have to transfer to another bus to get there and back.

In order to get to the nearest grocery store, Save-A-Lot in Hamden, most residents have to travel about a mile and a half. But fast-food joints, such as Chinese food restaurants, are located within walking distance in the neighborhood.

Melissa Barclay is a senior journalism student at Quinnipiac University. She is writing about food deserts this spring. She can be reached at melissa.barclay@quinnipiac.edu.

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Wallingford pastor organizes mission trips to Haiti

By Nick Solari

Pastor Lubin Beaucejour used to sit at his desk overlooking Interstate 91 and watch the cars fly by.

Beaucejour – an employee of Blue Cross Blue Shield in North Haven at the time – noticed that everybody seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere. Born and raised in Haiti, he marveled at the way Americans were always “on the go.”

“Watching the people drive by, I used to sit in my office looking out the window and just think, ‘what a country,’” Beaucejour said. “When I came to this country, and I saw the wealth of America, I remembered what I left behind. I saw the America that was spoiled. I used to just think ‘no, this can’t be possible.’”

He remembered what living in Haiti was like. He knew that things had gotten worse since the earthquake that devastated the country in 2010. People had no food, no water, no housing, no clothes.

“You have to go there to even comprehend the level of poverty,” Beaucejour said. “People say we have poverty in New Haven, and that we have poverty in Hartford and Waterbury… But what they don’t realize is that it’s much different.”

One of the biggest differences, Beaucejour said, was that Haiti had no “safety nets.”

“Haiti has no welfare, no soup kitchens, no Salvation Army. You might think it’s bad here, but it’s much worse there.”

He was “inspired to actually find a way to be the bridge that brings America to Haiti, and to be a blessing to the Haitian people.”

Beaucejour, currently a pastor at Christ Community Church in Wallingford, began organizing his first voyage back to his homeland in 2000. He created the Bethesda Evangelical Mission (BEM), a nonprofit organization that planned mission trips to Haiti’s southern peninsula.

BEM then became a branch of GO-ICS (Global Outreach International Center for Services), which Beaucejour created to “meet the medical challenges of the people of the southern peninsula,” according to the organization’s website, www.timetogonow.org.

The goal was simple: to provide access to health care throughout the region.

So Beaucejour began recruiting people to make trips to Haiti with him. At first, the organization would collect medication and health care supplies. They would go for a week, and hold open clinics in different villages where people could wait in line to receive care.

Sixteen years later, BEM still follows the same routine. Kathy Clements, a retired nurse, has been making two trips a year with Beaucejour and BEM since 2010.

Clements’ mother passed away on Jan. 12, 2010 – that day the earthquake in Haiti occurred. Clements was having a hard time dealing with her mother’s death, which is when her friend, Abby Bruce, suggested she take the trip to Haiti.

“I’m going to Haiti with my daughter,” Bruce, also a registered nurse, said. “You should come with us.”

“I found a way to give back in my mother’s memory,” Clements said. “I’ve gone back twice a year since, and I don’t regret a single moment of it.”

Bruce, who sponsors four children in Haiti, and Clements have been a part of BEM’s trip in February and August each year.

“There’s a group of us that have been doing this since 2010,” Bruce explained. “You develop relationships with the people you go with, so they become like family.”

Beaucejour says he is forever indebted to the people who have helped him with his project.

“It shows the heart that they have,” Beaucejour said. “For them, to give up their luxury to go help, it’s just a selfless action. They are the engine that makes this program run.”

BEM’s people stay in Beaucejour’s brother’s mission house when they travel to Haiti. Each day is the same: They wake up at 6 a.m., pray at 7, eat breakfast at 8 and then they’re out to door and on their way to a different village.

By the time they arrive there are hundreds of people waiting in line to be seen. The team sets up tables and chairs in a tent at the front to check people in. Younger children, who go on the trip but aren’t medically trained to take care of people, sit in the front of the portable tent to stamp people’s hands and provide them with anti-worm medication – since most of them need it.

The people then see the registered nurses and doctors. The team stops seeing patients for 15 minutes to eat lunch, and usually works until the sun goes down – since they have no electricity to keep working at night.

“I have an opportunity, given my medical background, to really make a difference,” Bruce said. “I feel like it’s my obligation, when I’m there, to give everyone waiting the proper treatment that they need.”

Patients there have all sorts of problems, ranging from ear infections and heartburn to malaria and malnutrition.

Clements recalls one 3-year-old child she saw years ago with an ear infection. He had puss dripping down his shoulder and the skin on his neck had been burnt.

“We cleaned his ear out, and the whole time he was screaming in pain,” she said. “We gave him antibiotics and Tylenol for the pain. The next time we went, I saw him, and he was doing much better. I think he would have lost his hearing if we hadn’t seen him that day, so that’s one instance where we truly changed someone’s life.”

Currently, GO-ICS is the No. 1 provider of medication for the southern peninsula of Haiti. The organization has funded and help build 12 schools in the region, and is poised to create a hospital in the region by 2019.

The hospital’s land was recently paid for, and GO-ICS has begun raising money for its construction.

The organization’s two main sources of funding are individual online contributions through PayPal and an annual gala in Hartford.

“Sometimes I just sit back and put my hand on my head and say, ‘you know what, there’s a kid eating because of us,’” Beaucejour said. “Isn’t that amazing?”

Beaucejour said religion is at the center of his operation, but across various faiths. Over time, his team has consisted of people who are Muslim, Christian, Jewish and Hindi.

“They all come together for the common good,” he said. “Every morning I have a devotion and I read from the Bible, but not to make people feel bad. We all pray together. They listen to what I have to say, and I listen to them”

That’s the most important part of Beaucejour’s operation: That people of all different faith can work together to help others.

“It shows that people can be mankind again,” he added. “Life is about finding Jesus in other people, and I truly believe seeing something is better than hearing it.”

“If I say I love you by being there when you’re hungry and naked, that’s the genuine love … It shows,” Beaucejour added. “That’s what this organization is about. We show people through our actions.”

Nick Solari is a senior journalism major at Quinnipiac University. He is writing about religion this spring. He can be reached at nicholas.solari@quinnipiac.edu.

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Abba’s Storehouse serves families in need

By Julia Perkins

Tucked in the middle of Wilbur Cross Commons Business Park in Hamden is Abba’s Storehouse.

Mercedes Sherman (left) and Cecilia Lewandowski (right) look over the list of food they ordered for the day on Sherman’s phone. (Julia Perkins photo)

The food bank, affiliated with Faith Healing and Deliverance Ministries, is open every third Saturday of the month from 9 to 11 a.m. About 55 to 70 families pass through the pantry between those hours. Most of the families are from New Haven, but about 30 to 40 percent are from Hamden, according to Mercedes Sherman, a New Haven resident who attends services at Faith Healing and Deliverance Ministries, which runs the pantry, and has volunteered there for years.

“There are a lot of people who go without food and who are struggling, even with state assistance to meet their needs — their needs for their entire family — especially the ones with a lot of children,” Sherman said. “That’s why you’ll see us be generous with someone who has a lot of family because we know the amount they get in food stamps doesn’t come close to what their needs are.”

When a woman with seven sons comes to get food, the volunteers jump to help her.

“Did she get sauce?” Cecelia Lewandowski, who runs the food pantry, asks one of the other volunteers.

Lewandowski starts digging through boxes of food behind the six tables set up around the room. Each table is filled with non-perishable items such as corn flakes, pasta, canned salmon, and one-pound bags of rice, as well as vegetables and bread. The storehouse keeps meat in the freezer, too, to give out to each shopper.

“Do you guys eat cranberries?” she asks.

“Craisins,” the woman responds.

“Okay, Craisins, all right.”

“Don’t forget your beans, honey. I’m still working on it,” another volunteer says as she packs food into one of the woman’s bags.

Lewandowski stepped up to run the food bank about six years ago after Faith Healing and Deliverance Ministries moved into one of the buildings in Wilbur Cross Commons Business Park. Its senior pastor, Sandra Jefferson, made it part of the church’s mission to offer a food bank to residents after the move.

 “It’s important because at any point in time it could be you on the other side, so you want to be able to help anybody in any way that you can,” Lewandowski said.

The food bank is run by volunteers. On Saturday, Feb. 20, three church members (besides Lewandowski) and five Quinnipiac University students from the Marketing Society were there handing out food.

It was the first time freshman marketing major Janelle Herbert volunteered at the food bank.

“The most satisfying part is just seeing all the people and being able to know that you made a difference in their lives,” she said. “And to help people who are less fortunate than you and who really need this. … I’ve met so many people. Most people are so friendly when they come in. They’re all so polite. It’s really great working with them and for them.”

Every Friday, Sherman goes to the Connecticut Food Bank in Wallingford to stock up on non-perishable items for the next time the pantry is open. Most weeks she gets about 300 to 400 pounds of food. However, on the Friday before the bank is open she gets nearly 1,000 pounds because she needs to buy perishable foods such as bread and potatoes. While produce is free at the Connecticut Food Bank, everything else costs a few pennies per pound. The storehouse pays for the food through donations and a grant from ShopRite, Sherman said.

Sherman and Lewandowski check out the food they have left at the end of the morning. (Julia Perkins photo)

Abba’s Storehouse is not the only place in Hamden that offers a food pantry. St. Ann’s Soup Kitchen, the Ministry of Helps Foundation, Love Center Deliverance Food Pantry, God’s Miracle Unlimited Outreach Ministry, St. Rita’s Food Pantry and Keefe Community Center all provide food pantries. Many of these pantries are open on different days, that way those in need can get food more often, Sherman said.

Still, Sherman said Abba’s Storehouse is one of the more popular ones.

“I’ve been told by a lot of the people who come here that they prefer coming to this food pantry because we do have meat,” she said. “Other food pantries don’t have meat, but then I realize that a lot of the churches and the organizations that do this, they don’t have a place to store it. And we’re very fortunate that we have freezers.”

Sherman has gotten to know some of the people who come to the storehouse every month.

“The same people come all the time and you get to know who only takes exactly what they need or who takes everything whether it’s what they need or not,” she said with a laugh.

Lewandowski said people start to line up to get food at 7 a.m.—two hours before the pantry opens.

“Because it’s first come, first serve,” she said. “Once we run out, we run out.”

But Abba’s has never run out of food completely. Even if there is no more meat or potatoes left, for example, the storehouse still will have something to give to a latecomer. While shoppers are supposed to show their ID when they come for food, if they forget, Lewandowski said she would never let anyone go home empty-handed.

“We don’t turn anybody away, especially when it comes to food and it’s the wintertime,” she said. “No, that doesn’t work. We don’t turn you away.”

Julia Perkins is a senior journalism major at Quinnipiac University and is editor-in-chief of The Quinnipiac Chronicle. She is writing about poverty and income inequality this spring. She can be reached at julia.perkins@quinnipiac.edu.

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