The following is a TA reflection from the half-credit CEL course Food, Faith, and Justice. To read reflections from more students, please read here.
What a week it has been! I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to come to Baltimore for Food, Faith, and Justice a second time. This week was filled with meaningful conversation, learning, connection, joy, and laughter. Thinking back on this experience, I will of course remember all of the amazing people and organizations we met with, but I will also remember the many rounds of spicy uno and pit, the communal cooking and meals, fun car rides, late night conversations, and shared reflections. As we have been saying ever since the course began, one of our main goals was to form a learning community, and this is exactly what our group became. I could not be happier with how the 13 of us came together this week.
So if we were a learning community- what did we learn? Mostly, we learned that individuals and organizations in Baltimore and beyond are trying to tackle food insecurity in a lot of different ways: national and local policy, agriculture and gardening, forestry, faith, direct meal service, networks, education, and food and meal donation. Increasingly, we are seeing connections and overlap between these approaches, creating a shared effort to end food insecurity. For example, the Baltimore Food Policy and Planning Office relies heavily upon community organizations throughout the city to distribute their produce boxes, and is listening and responding to these organizations’ feedback about their programming. Another example: Rev. Dr. Heber Brown III, the founder of the Black Church Food Security Network who we spoke with on Saturday, is on the board of Bread for the World, who we met with on Wednesday. Maryland Food Bank has expanded beyond being a food bank to include other efforts like sharing “neighbor” voices in testimonies for new legislation, professional chef training, hunger mapping, and bettering the cultural relevance of food donations And so much more. To me, this interconnectedness of both groups and strategies is proof of the importance of community. As Cindy pointed out on day one, the fight for food justice should be done through interdependence, not independence. We are so much stronger together than we are apart, and all of the experiences this week, both in our visits and in our own group, made that extremely apparent.
As this trip also taught me, I have a lot more to continue to learn and figure out. A lingering question for me both years in a row has been “where do I fit in?”. With so many different ways to address such a big issue, which one resonates the most with me? I still don’t have an answer and that is something I will spend (at least) my remaining two years of college trying to figure out. But there are a few great things about that. 1. I know that whatever I choose to do will be meaningful work. 2. Since this is a communal effort, I will never be acting in isolation. 3. I now have the resources and network to help me in my search.
I am leaving this week so grateful for every experience I had, person I met, and moment I spent in Baltimore this Spring Break. We did it- we became a learning community! I can’t wait to see where this knowledge leads everyone in this group and what great things future cohorts will continue to do.
