As we reflect on 2023, we wanted to share some of our learnings, growth, and celebratory moments during this year of transition. Here’s a look at what we’ve accomplished (Download our YEAR IN REVIEW)
We’re Building Our Team
Early this year, our founder and Executive Director Dennis Derryck stepped down from his role after a decade of trailblazing, driving discourse and the trajectory of our mission here at Corbin Hill. In our transition we welcomed our Board member, Ismail Samad who stepped in as Interim Executive Director, to lead the organization. We grew our team – adding our first Food Justice Fellow and three new coordinators, hired directly from the community that we’re serving.
We’re Celebrating Ancestral Food Knowledge and Skills and Sharing Within Our Community
We engaged our youth and elders in chef-led skillshares and countless food demos with an emphasis on culture. Our chefs worked to dispel the myth that cultural foods are unhealthy by mixing and hot-filling our own batches of homemade sofrito and custom-blended sazon and adobo. Our community said YES to flavor without fillers or excess sodium!
We’re Advocating for Feeding Communities Fresh Food in Dignified Ways
Beyond increasing access to fresh food, CH strives to create environments that are welcoming and dignified for our community members that participate in our programs. We reinforced our commitment to community and meeting folks where they are by working in partnership with Fortune Society, Harlem Wellness Center, and Philip Randolph Houses to remove the transportation barriers to receiving food – in fact, community members don’t even need to step outside their buildings! Participants can also opt out of screenings, or lengthy surveys, a common and extractive practice of many other community services and interventions. Instead, we’ve formed a community council to provide feedback on our implementation of our Food as Medicine program and are already making changes based upon the communities voice and needs.
We’re Building Relationships with an Ecosystem of Organizations Supporting BIPOC Farms and Farmers
Through a USDA SARE Grant, we’re collectively examining what it could mean to create a Black Farmer Commons, in partnership with BIPOC-led organizations including Farm School NYC, Soul Fire Farm, Black Farmers Fund, Black Farmers United NYS, and the Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust. Through our ecosystem relationships, we’re able to share relevant resources, connect with, and direct source from Black farmers, including Farm Fresh Caribbean Growers!
We’re Sharing Our Learnings
From City Hall to Denver to Chicago to Capitol Hill, CH has been on the road this year sharing our learnings as one of the early BIPOC organizations to receive USDA funding for Food as Medicine. We’ll continue to build upon our decade of experience feeding the community, capturing our learnings, and sharing best practices to inform local and national policy.
Honoring and Respecting Legacy While Looking Forward into 2024:
At its core, CH remains a nimble organization that aims to meet the fresh food needs of the community. Our strategy is to uphold our values of racial equity, shifting power, and food sovereignty and to lean into the rich and diverse experience of our team of change agents, advocates, and creative disruptors to help shape our collective future and impact.
While we’ve only begun our strategic planning for 2024, we’ve identified three main goals in the coming year:
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Engaging others in our work: We’re looking forward to convening others and sharing our work through public events and webinars as we work towards addressing the root cause of food and nutrition insecurity in our communities.
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Strengthening our organization: We’re investing in building up our team, including professional development, training, creating cohesiveness and trust, and a culture that embraces vulnerability – we’re all in this work together.
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Sustaining our work: We’re deep in development to secure funding from aligned partners, recruiting new board members, and exploring the possibility of securing relevant assets in the near future that will support and sustain our reimagined CH.
Happy Holidays from the CH crew!