Facing rising food insecurity amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Manhattan’s Northview neighborhood, as well as Riley County as a whole, Vineyard Community Church volunteers Shari Brown and Kyle Green look to the past to inspire them to make a difference today.
“I was a single mom and people helped me,” says Brown. “I'm in a different situation now, and I can give back and I want to.”
“I know for the longest time there wasn’t anything that really helped anybody in the neighborhood who was less fortunate,” says Green, a 34-year resident of the Northview neighborhood. “Our pastor said many times our church is there to help the community out. It’s church, but it’s also there to help this neighborhood out as much as we can.”
Brown and Green help operate and maintain the blessing box at Vineyard, one of currently 18 caches of shelf stable food in Riley County available to those struggling to put meals on the table. The Vineyard Community Church location, though, is the sole blessing box in Northview – located in the second most food insecure census tract in the county behind the Ogden area according to the Flint Hills Wellness Coalition opportunity map.
BY THE NUMBERS
Coordinator Vickie James of the Food and Farm Council of Riley County and Manhattan says food insecure households are those that alter their food purchasing or eating habits due to a lack of money or other resources over some period of time, short or long. More than just a barrier brought by financial shortfalls, health, disability, and transportation needs all factor into one’s ability to access nutritious and healthful foods.
“If you have a car break down and you have some car expenses you weren’t expecting, lost job, illness,” says James. “During COVID, it’s been possibly everything from quarantine or […] you worked somewhere that was shut down or a number of employees were furloughed.”
U.S. hunger relief organization Feeding America reports Riley County overall saw a jump in food insecurity in 2020 as the pandemic began to impact lives worldwide. The county’s rate rose from 12.9 percent in 2018 to 15.8 percent in 2020. The percentage and increase was greater specifically for Riley County children, with 22.1 percent reported as food insecure in 2020 compared to 16.6 percent in 2018.
Northview, with a projected 2018 population of 7,873 or just over 14 percent of Manhattan, was rated a score of 41.46 on the food access tab of the FHWC’s Riley County opportunity map, the lowest in Manhattan and second in Riley County to the Ogden area with a score of 39.30. The map, though, relies on older census data and projections and does not reflect any pandemic-related changes. Additionally, the neighborhood is populated by numerous individuals classifying as low or moderate income and many are located more than a mile from a grocery store providing fresh produce, putting Northview into the USDA’s food desert category.
“Getting to the closest store for them would be Walmart and then Hy-Vee and Dillon’s after that,” says Flint Hills Wellness Coalition Chair Debbie Nuss. “But there are challenges getting out of Northview in terms of sidewalks and safety – it’s improved a little bit in recent years, but it’s still not ideal.”
Though Feeding America does not report data at the neighborhood level, Brown and Green attested anecdotally to increased need in the Northview neighborhood. They noted some of the folks they meet through their work are dealing with prolonged unemployment, living in cars, or living outdoors due to recent financial burdens.
“[My husband, Greg,] had somebody come up to him the other day when he was [stocking the blessing box] and said ‘I had to have surgery a couple weeks ago and I ended up losing my job and this box has fed my family,’” says Brown. “That’s the kind of insecurity we see. People’s careers, jobs, they’re tenuous right now – COVID is not the only impactor right now, but it’s a great impactor.”
TAKING ACTION
There are multiple groups taking action against food insecurity in the area, from Harvester’s distributions to Common Table meals across the community, though most are not located in the Northview neighborhood. Those struggling with transportation issues may run into difficulty reaching those food opportunities, according to Nuss, Brown and Green. Additionally, while the Flint Hills Area Transportation Agency provides a bus service, they stop operating at 7 p.m. and Common Table meals are served at 6 – which would leave some with no way back home after attending the dinners.
Volunteers at Vineyard Community Church are doing what they can to bridge the gap in-part through their weekly Sunday morning breakfast service from 9:45 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Currently only providing to-go meals amid the pandemic, volunteers offer standard American breakfast foods including eggs and sausage, pancakes and waffles, as well as coffee or juice to wash it down.
“We feed anywhere from between about six and 15 people each Sunday,” says Green. “When we were doing it inside, our numbers were a little bit higher.
“We see a lot of the same people. We’ve got a lady right now that comes that lives in her van at the moment, she depends a lot on the breakfast.”
Vineyard’s volunteers as well as people in the community also help make sure the blessing box is kept stocked for those in the neighborhood in need outside of Sundays. The number of boxes in Riley County has grown quickly over the past two years, a joint effort by the community, local churches, the Food and Farm Council and the Flint Hills Wellness Coalition.
Northview’s blessing box manifested after Brown read about the concept and floated it to church leadership, who loved the idea according to Green. A church member with carpentry skills built the structure and a Manko Window Systems employee helped with reinforcing its glass doors. Community members and those involved in neighborhood advocacy group Northview Rising vigilantly keep it stocked. Vineyard is also supported in doing so with a monthly $600 check from the FHWC. Brown adds that business owners around Manhattan have been challenging one another to step up and fill boxes that are running low.
“People in the Northview neighborhood, too, there’s some awesome gardeners there,” she says. “Summer you never have to worry about fruits and vegetables, […] we have a basket on the bottom where the fresh fruits and vegetables are supposed to go and it’s always full.
“It’s not just our church doing this, it’s the Northview community’s blessing box – it’s people in the Northview neighborhood helping other people in the Northview neighborhood. We just happen to be the place where the box is set up.”
While the blessing box has been welcomed by the community, it’s just one step toward addressing the larger issue of food insecurity in Northview and the Greater Manhattan area. James and the Food and Farm Council are gearing up to begin a master food plan for Riley County and the City of Manhattan in 2021, also supported by the Pathways grant awarded to the FHWC.
“Just like a city and county have long range plans for about everything, there isn’t one for our food system,” James says. “And food needs to be a priority whether you think about it from the standpoint of access, whether you think about chronic disease, whether you think about the economic impact of our local production of food and distribution.
“Food is part of our daily world and the fact that we just expect it to happen without having a long range for it doesn't make a lot of sense.”
James says the plan would be just the third of its kind in Kansas and take a systemic view of the county’s foodways from “soil to soil,” a holistic look at food in the county from the farm to the landfill. The FFC hopes the plan can assist area government in decision making on issues related to food as well as cut waste, improve health and help organize local action to assist those in need.
One thing she and the council hope to avoid is acting out of line with the community, though. James says a key component to the plan is “authentic neighbor engagement” and ensuring that all residents – urban and rural – have their needs represented in the final recommendations.
“I don’t want to presume that I know how to get information from those that live in Northview,” says James. “It doesn’t do any good for a 15-member council to develop a plan that we take to the city and county commissioners and ask them to adopt if we decide what our community needs.
“We will be doing it by talking with our friends and neighbors and letting them help us with what should be in there.”
Originally posted at https://northviewnotable.substack.com/p/northview-collaborates-to-address
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