Two FREEDOM FOOD Planners Share Their Stories
IN THE SUMMER OF 2020, A LARGE GROUP OF DEDICATED VOLUNTEERS GATHERED WITH PROMISE HEIGHTS TO DEVELOP A NEW PROGRAM TO PURCHASE AND SHARE FOOD IN AND FROM THE COMMUNITY. THEIR FOCUS WAS TO SOURCE HEALTHY AND FRESHLY HARVESTED FOOD PRODUCED BY BLACK-OWNED CATERING COMPANIES, GROCERIES, AND LOCALLY GROWN PRODUCE.
TWO OF THOSE VOLUNTEERS HAVE DEVOTED THEIR LIVES TO ENRICHING THEIR COMMUNITIES AND PROVED TO BE IMPORTANT LEADERS IN THE EFFORT TO DEVELOP THE FREEDOM FOOD PROGRAM.
Here are their stories in their own words.
CYNTHIA BANKS
Cynthia Banks is proud of her new home garden
“It is very important to me to bring education of nutritious food and value of community efforts to support the issues surrounding the food desert that we live within. It is a goal of mine to unify the community and support growth of ongoing community initiatives.”
Cynthia Banks Promise Heights Parent Leader at Furman L. Templeton Preparatory Academy shares her story.
“It all started for me because we had a parade, and after the parade we had an outing on a field. A young lady came to ask if I would want to come to an outreach meeting to talk about living in a food desert. And I was asked if I wanted to take part. I said, ‘Of course I do! I live here, so I understand the problem of not having adequate food!’ I struggle, sometimes to make sure I have enough food for myself and my children. You know, I grew up in poverty, so I don’t want my children to experience what I experienced, and I’m doing the best that I can.”
“I’m also teaching them that you have to value your food and what you eat. A lot of times, we would go to the market and they wouldn’t have good food, so I started exposing them to the Farmers’ Market and stuff like that. The neighborhoods have farmers’ markets, but they only run on certain days of the week in certain areas, so you have to travel to get to them.”
“That’s when Meaghan [Tine, LMSW, Community School Director at Furman L. Templeton Preparatory Academy] asked me if I wanted to join the community planning group for the Freedom Food Program, and I said “sure!” That’s when I asked if I could invite other people, and she said, ‘sure!’”
“They told us that they got a grant that could feed 100 families of four until the end of September, and that’s how I started joining the planning sessions.”
It turns out that Cynthia was part of our Pearlstone Kitchen Meal Train program this past summer, where 100 families of four received freshly sourced vegetarian meals every Friday for eight weeks. Clearly, she loved that opportunity. “That was really awesome because it exposed my children to foods that they weren’t used to—a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables, and even though I’m on the healthy side, there were a lot of foods they’d never seen before. They’d ask, ‘what is THIS?!’ Because, you know, children eat with their eyes. They don’t necessarily eat with their stomachs.
““It was cool to receive those meals from the program and then see how they took the ingredients that they gave us and made an actual delicious meal out of it. It also inspired me to start my own garden! Now we have a garden in the back of our house, and we’ve grown our own tomatoes, and peppers, and onions, and garlic. So, we’ve exposed our kids to where our own food comes from.”
She circled back to the Freedom Food Program planning sessions, saying, “It was a good opportunity. The more I want to the meetings, the more I started hearing about different opportunities in my neighborhood. I live in the Heritage Crossing complex and there are a lot of vacant lots nearby, so I asked if they’d be interested in trying to start a community garden.”
Cynthia goes on to explain that she learned about a homeowner’s association that she’s been trying to join, and now she’s trying to be included in the community newsletter. “I’ve been in touch with the complex developers about the partnership with the Freedom Food Program, and while we were talking, I asked if they wanted to start a community garden….right here in our development. And they were interested!”
Cynthia seems amazed by this synchronicity, though the growth of these various incentives reminds us of that beautifully arranged domino cascade. She continued, enthused, “So, it was a moment when I was taking my experience from my job—and mixing it, you know, with my personal life—and making it more of a community thing, rather than it just being for the school meal program. It’s so amazing!”
“My goal is to send [the homeowner’s association] pictures of areas in our neighborhood that would be good locations to grow healthy foods. The supermarket that’s in this neighborhood—in a six or seven block radius…they’re could be thousands of people who all go to that one store, so buying food there comes on a first-come-first-served basis. So, it also diminishes the opportunity to get healthy foods because if you don’t get there on time, you get the scraps…. These new options are so essential!”
“After we were awarded a grant to offer food to 100 families until the end of September, we were able to collaborate with a number of churches, and then we were able to provide a number of meals and rotate to different areas. We now have the opportunity to help families all over the place. That’s why we started talking about starting our own CSA, to build ways we could help those people in our own community and [entice] people who already live here to come out of their homes and create that kind of resource for yourselves and your own community.”
As the growing season in this part of the world draws to an end and these funds from the Fund for Educational Excellence have helped many hundreds of people in recent months, we’re looking forward to seeing the seeds that people like Cynthia will sow throughout our community, building a stronger set of resources for the people of Upton/Druid Heights and the Baltimore region.
“After we were awarded a grant to offer food to 100 families until the end of September, we were able to collaborate with a number of churches, and then we were able to provide a number of meals and rotate to different areas. We now have the opportunity to help families all over the place. That’s why we started talking about starting our own CSA, to build ways we could help those people in our own community and [entice] people who already live here to come out of their homes and create that kind of resource for yourselves and your own community.”
As the growing season in this part of the world draws to an end and these funds from the Fund for Educational Excellence have helped many hundreds of people in recent months, we’re looking forward to seeing the seeds that people like Cynthia will sow throughout our community, building a stronger set of resources for the people of Upton/Druid Heights and the Baltimore region.
VONZELLA PARKER
Vonzella Parker is an active supporter of her community.
Vonzella Parker, community organizer & Promise Heights resident shares her story
“I’m affiliated with Promise Heights because I live in the neighborhood right off Dolphin Street. I participate with different organizations within Promise Heights such as Parent University, B’more for Healthy Babies, the Eutaw-Marshburn Judy Center, Community Achievers, and The Center for Urban Families.”
“I've always loved to help people. I'm known as ‘Little Miss Resource’ because—even before the pandemic—I would send resources out about food pantries and other opportunities. I’ve been focused to help others in our community.”
“I recently received an announcement about mental health. If you’re having a mental health crisis, you need some help. We ALL need help sometimes. And the good thing about it is that when I send things out, the people can use it or pass it on—so each post reaches a vast majority of people. That’s such an important thing about this time…now we have ways to support and help each other.”
Vonzella Parker, Community Volunteer helping coordinate the Freedom Food program
When we started our conversation with Vonzella to learn about her part in the Freedom Food program, her enthusiastic toddler seemed to want to share his own opinion about life and his favorite foods. Yet she maintained a sense of humor and focus while sharing a bit about her interests and work as a vital supporter of her community.
She began by sharing her involvement in sourcing food to assist others, “We have people in the community who were trying to start a community garden and to provide food to different families in the area. I was invited to join them. Meanwhile, since I participate in various outreach groups, I was invited to join the Freedom Food planning group by Stacey Stephens the Director at B’more for Healthy Babies. I’m a peer leader with them and help other moms.”
“For a long time—I can’t remember just when I started—each day I have collected various flyers that list resources about food pantries throughout the entire city. I send out those posts every day of the week. A cousin and mine—we do it together. We collect information from churches, and community centers, and schools, and Walgreens, and more places throughout the city. I also go to the 211 website to see the resources they list.”
“I also collect flyers for job opportunities—that was something I did long before COVID—but mainly I’ve been doing it since the pandemic started. A lot of people like me are out of a job now due to the pandemic. I had a good catering job at the Baltimore Convention Center, and all the food at the convention center was done by us. They closed, of course it was shut down when the pandemic hit, and there’s no returning back to that job because they’re not opening up for the rest of this year. All the events coming to the Convention Center were canceled. With no events, they can’t pay us, so I've been out of work ever since.”
We asked what led her to start collecting these opportunities and her generous spirit was evident in her reply, “I've always loved to help people. I'm known as ‘Little Miss Resource’ because—even before the pandemic—I would send resources out about food pantries and other opportunities. Yet now, there’s so much more available now to people since COVID hit.”
“Everybody can use help sometimes, especially now during the pandemic, since so many people are without work. That’s why I’m helping others. Before COVID, you had to live in a certain Zip code to be serviced by a food pantry, but since the pandemic, that’s not necessary anymore. Anyone can use their service. With curbside pickup, all you do is to drive up, pop your hood, and drive away with the food.”
“I recently received an announcement about mental health. If you’re having a mental health crisis, you need some help. We ALL need help sometimes. And the good thing about it is that when I send things out, the people can use it or pass it on—so each post reaches a vast majority of people. That’s such an important thing about this time…now we have ways to support and help each other.”
And despite how busy Vonzella is every day, with a family and numerous community-based enrichment projects, she’s also planning her future. “I have a lot of skills under my belt, one of them is that I do medical assistance. I haven’t been practicing for a while, though I do caregiving on the side. I’m getting ready to go back to school—to college—although I have a child in high school, one in middle school, in elementary. And my son who you just saw, he’s getting ready to begin at Head Start with the Y. So, I have a pretty full plate, and I’m not sure what’s next right now.”
Vonzella mentions that she’s planning to study at the Spirit Faith Christian Center, “they have a three-year program at the Bible Institute. I want to enhance my knowledge, spiritually and biblically, and then see where God leads me from there.”
Meanwhile, we’re not surprised that Vonzella sends us daily texts offering numerous community opportunities to help others, proving that she ‘walks the walk and talks the talk’ every single day.
Click here to learn more about the Freedom Food program that empowered residents of Promise Heights