Buffalo’s Own Inc. will host the first Food Justice Tour at the Northland Workforce Training Center in Buffalo, New York, on Oct. 29 from noon to 5 p.m.
The Food Justice Tour aims to promote health equity. The event will draw attention to the importance of food sustainability, complying with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 2 of ending hunger coupled with Goal 17, which calls for partnership and collaboration in achieving all goals.
Shadeed Abdul-Salaam and Paul Carr, the co-founders of the Food Justice Tour, spoke with rolling out about the event.
Tell us about the Food Justice Tour.
Paul Carr: Our goal is to present an alternative to what currently exists in the Black community of Buffalo, so that our people, elders, and children that are sick, have a healthier option to what it is that they’re feeling. This is priority number one in our community. We’re dying at alarming rates from things that we can prevent. So, whether it’s heart disease, diabetes, or COPD, a lot of the things are exacerbated by our diets, and we don’t take it as seriously as we should. It’s not because we don’t care, it’s because we really don’t know where to start. The Food Justice Tour is a solution that our community can look toward as an alternative to what exists in a model that is currently not serving us at all.
Shadeed Abdul-Salaam: Our goal is to make sure that there is a memorial of sorts through this community project. We’re going to have healthy food taste testing, mental health and social support resources, workforce development and educational opportunities, because economic mobility is an issue in our community. This is a part of the social determinants of health. It feels good being able to provide some educational nutrition, have a food marketplace and health screenings, and then also roll in some other options around teaching agriculture, making it fun, and letting the people in the community know that we care and that we are not going to stop. This is just one space to provide a safe haven in this community, as we will in other spaces, so that they can gather, grow, build, and learn. We’re just excited to be able to engage with Buffalo’s Own as well as Feed Buffalo, which are two nonprofits that are local to Western New York.
