Revitalizing Community through Youth and Urban Agriculture in Alameda

This trip is now closed.

Many communities in northwestern Alameda County have high levels of poverty, crime and gang violence, and limited access to healthy food. On this tour, witness the remarkable process of revitalization of historically marginalized communities through two unique models focused on youth and community empowerment: one at the former Alameda Navy Base and the other on the blighted “forgotten lands” of South San Leandro.

The Alameda Point Collaborative (APC) was created in 1999 to provide meaningful housing to homeless families throughout the East Bay. APC transformed vacant housing at a decommissioned Naval Air Station into a supportive housing community serving over 500 residents. APC has since given birth to several community-based projects. Among them, the Growing Youth Project employs resident youth working to build a sustainable food system here on Alameda Point. Growing Youth operates a community garden, weekly produce delivery and teaches residents about cooking and nutrition.

In nearby South San Leandro Dig Deep Farms, a program of the Alameda County Deputy Sheriffs’ Activities League (DSAL), is taking an innovative, food and farm-based approach to crime prevention. Dig Deep employs local people to work on its Urban Farming Team and turns unused and blighted properties into beautiful farms and higher valued space. It also sells locally-grown produce back to the community at an affordable price to encourage health, nutrition and the overall support of community-based food production. Dig Deep aims to prevent violence, crime and other negative behaviors by employing and engaging the community in the process of beautifying, caring for and eating from their very own local land.

Participating Organizations

• Alameda Point Collaborative is a supportive housing community, providing housing, services and community programs to support families so that they need never know the struggles of homelessness again. APC’s Growing Youth Project provides local youth with meaningful employment and engages them in the transformation of Alameda’s food system.
• Dig Deep Farms provides the community of San Leandro with increased access to fresh food, support for sustainable businesses, living-wage jobs, and increased self sufficiency in communities suffering the impacts of health disparities, crime and poverty.

This trip is now closed. Please check back for future Food Justice Tours.

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Bay Area Food Justice Tours (Nov. 4 – 5, 2011) are brought to you by CFSC in partnership with Food Sovereignty Tours, a project of Food First/the Institute for Food and Development Policy. Tours are open to CFSC Conference participants only.

For more information, contact Tanya at tkerssen@foodfirst.org or by phone at (510) 654-4400, ext. 223