“The genesis of our story is like many people’s, which was the start of the pandemic.” Rebecca and Scott Ramsey were located in Colorado where they were experiencing food shortages in the midst of the pandemic. When they started to see the grocery store shelves become empty with two children at home, it made them […]
Sandra Ballew Barnes, CAN participant and Fresh Rx Coordinator, shares about one of Community Farm Alliance’s (CFA) successful produce prescription programs – Fresh Rx for Moms. This program provides local grown produce to expectant mothers who are on medicaid. It was piloted in Western Kentucky and through a USDA Gus Schumacher Nutrition Incentive Program (GusNIP), […]
Summit Five March 23, 2023 9:00AM–1:00PM EST Day Six Recording: https://youtu.be/fi5W6vPUm6Q Slides: CAN Summit 6 Slides Links & Additional Resources: USDA RFSP Application Page: https://www.ams.usda.gov/services/grants/rfsp/apply USDA RFSP March 29th Webinar: https://www.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_LJgr-SU9QTKl8cnxa8qM4A Osteopathic Heritage Foundtions website: https://osteopathicheritage.org/ Recommendations for the Farm Bill: https://action.oeffa.com/farm-bill/ Invest Appalachia Fund: https://mailchi.mp/e82dbc628291/19m-for-invest-appalachia?e=0c7badede0 Speakers We are proud to welcome a litany of […]
Summit Five January 26, 2023 9:00AM–1:00PM EST Day Five Recording: https://youtu.be/l3Dsd63S6AA Slides: CAN Summit 5 Slides Links & Additional Resources: “Food as Medicine: Current Efforts and Potential Opportunities” testimony before the United States Senate Subcommittee on Food and Nutrition, Specialty Crops, Organics, and Research: https://www.agriculture.senate.gov/hearings/food-as-medicine-current-efforts-and-potential-opportunities Appalachian Harvest Food Hub: https://www.asdevelop.org/programs-resources/food-hub/ Appalachian Harvest Herb Hub: https://www.asdevelop.org/programs-resources/herbhub/ […]
The COVID-19 crisis brought a new reality & shifted the way we all live and work. Nonprofits are adjusting quickly to their staff working from home. This new way of working is surfacing a variety of issues and further exacerbating the systemic inequalities that affect historically marginalized folks. Challenges commonly faced by rural communities such […]
A summary of the first ever “Sassafrass Moon” herbal heritage festival, held in Erwin, Tennessee to celebrate the region’s herbal heritage.
Over the months leading up to this past winter, I was given the opportunity to work with CAN and their many partner organizations across the Appalachian region to highlight the work they are doing to improve healthy food access in their communities. I captured these initiatives through a number of short videos, each highlighting a different project described in recently completed case studies conducted and published by CAN and the Appalachian Funders Network.
The joint Food & Ag Systems Working Group between CAN and the Appalachia Funders Network worked together to conduct and publish six case studies of projects at the intersection of food access and health. Several members of the Funders Network funded the work to document and highlight lessons from innovative projects around the region, and CAN […]
CAN members, practitioner partners, and Appalachia Funders Network members of the Food &Ag Systems Working Group (FASWG) were joined by policy experts from the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NSAC). NSAC staff shared an overview of the Farm Bill process,identified critical USDA programs that are funded through the bill, and laid out opportunities to get involved in […]
Authored by the Appalachian Foodshed Project for CAN and the Food & Ag Systems Working Group of the Appalachia Funders Network, this report provides state-level data snapshots related to food, agriculture, poverty, and health of the Central Appalachian region and suggests approaches to creating and utilizing data as a means of understanding and addressing food, […]
Central Appalachia’s public health disparities are staggering compared with the rest of the country. However, this data-driven analysis and video presentation by Dr. Randy Wykoff, Dean of the ETSU College of Public Health shows that there is great potential to impact the major health factors of social determinants and behavior. Education outcomes, public health, and […]