Introduction
Food deserts are regions where there are no grocery stores within easy driving distance, restricting or eliminating residents’ access to affordable, healthful food options, particularly fresh fruits and vegetables. For instance, 2.3 million people live more than one mile distant from a supermarket and do not own a car, according to a report by the US Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service (Wetherill et al., 2019). The presence of food deserts in schools interferes with academic success. Low nutrition prevents students from developing properly and from being ready to work hard and efficiently in school, which results in poor academic achievement.
Sustainable Development Goal
Ten percent of the approximately 65,000 census areas in the United States are classified as food deserts by the Locator (Wetherill et al., 2019). In these census areas, 13.5 million people have limited access to healthy food sources (Castañón et al., 2020). Areas with smaller populations, higher rates of abandoned or deserted homes, and residents with lower levels of education, lower incomes, and higher rates of unemployment are more likely to have food deserts. According to Wetherill et al. (2019), Black communities have been shown to have fewer supermarkets than white communities hence food deserts are an unfair reality. A food pantry inside or close to a school is referred to as a school food pantry. They collaborate with neighborhood organizations, food banks, and school administrations. Families in need of extra assistance paying for groceries are helped by school pantries. They do not just apply to students who get free or reduced-price meals but also to district residents.
Many people associate going to school with book bags, notes, and bus rides. However, this also means that approximately 30 million kids who depend on daily free and reduced-price school lunches will be receiving the nourishment they require (Wetherill et al., 2019). Kids feel better, perform better in school, and behave better when they have access to healthy meals every day. Based on the global nature and increased malnutrition among citizens, the organization adopted the 2030 sustainable development goal aimed at reducing hunger to zero (Widener, 2018). This organization will therefore work to ensure a constant and sufficient supply of nutritious food. The gaps that arise after the school is out of the day will be filled when our team in collaboration with other partners introduces food pantries in school that cater to children and families who live in food deserts after the school day has ended.
Logic model
Stakeholders
Stakeholders refer to individuals, groups, or organizations that will participate and be impacted by the execution of the school food pantry project. They have a personal stake in its success because it will benefit them financially or professionally and may have a significant impact on how it is completed. They are also those groups or individuals without whose support the organization would not be able to function (Wetherill et al., 2019). Our organization will bring together various stakeholders with the goal of managing their requirements, interests, and points of view. This will contribute to the positive feedback that will ensure the success of the organization in achieving its objectives. The organization will bring together stakeholders such as suppliers, customers, employees, communities, managers, and shareholders to ensure that all win over time. Therefore, stakeholders are crucial to the successful execution of the food security strategy because they may provide financial support and strategic input.
Stakeholder engagement is a common thread through every stage of the process. Interaction with stakeholders can be divided to three types of engagement. These are consultation which is a two-way process where an organization includes the stakeholders in the decision-making and planning process. Stakeholders will provide information, opinions, and ideas that will directly affect the direction of the project. Informing stakeholders of decisions, progress, and status of the project. This is more of a one-way communication where an organization keeps stakeholders informed of project status and progress. Participation involves direct contribution and involvement in the project (Widener, 2018). In the food pantry development project, the local community will play an active part in the project. Community participation is the best means of ensuring local ownership and the long-term sustainability of the outcomes.
High-ranking government officials, influential figures in the food sector, neighborhood associations, and religious institutions are examples of stakeholders. These participants can aid in determining which opportunities and needs are most pressing. The creation of an organizational strategy, as well as a resource and development plan, can benefit from the input of this group. It is necessary to first distinguish between the two tiers of stakeholders (Allcott et al., 2019). Stakeholder participation, with a higher level of commitment that lessens their resistance to the project, and buy-in, stakeholder involvement, in which stakeholders need to be kept informed and consulted. A parallel track of continuous negotiations is necessary since stakeholder involvement is a process of consultation, communication, and exchange.
Implementation
The implementation of the development of food pantries in schools in the United States is a collaborative effort between our organization and other interested partners. These parties come together to help children and families with little or no access to healthy food. To best implement this initiative our team will collaborate with partners such as food banks, hospitals, community partners, and school administrators in the planning process. The goal of this initiative is to directly serve the residents and the school-going children by providing them with easily accessible healthy food.
The first step in this process is to determine who, in the early stages of execution, the food pantry is supposed to serve. This process will take approximately two months to determine the rightful beneficiaries (Allcott et al., 2019). Rather than requiring students to qualify for the services of the food pantry as many community pantries or local services would, the school food pantry will willingly serve any student without asking for information about their financial situation. This decision was made to emphasize inclusivity, but also not restrict students who may have complex situations regarding their financial stability from getting the extra support that they need.
Additionally, it is the hope of our team and the partners that making the pantry accessible to all students will help in reducing any negative connotations about students who use the services that the pantry offers. One of the key goals of our team is to create an atmosphere of acceptance and trust for students and community residents who need to use the food pantry. This, however, will be done through intentional marketing about what food insecurity is and by outlining whom the food pantry serves.
The organization will require immense funding for it to achieve its objectives and remain operational and helpful to the targeted parties. Most of the funding will be done by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and faith organizations. USDA is an organization that buys food from farmers and delivers it to food banks so they can distribute it to the local community. With 2.5 billion meals provided by USDA programs in 2020, they are among the most dependable food sources for food banks (Castañón et al., 2020). Secondly, humanitarian help has historically been provided by faith-based organizations, many of which have an emphasis on reducing hunger and promoting food security.
This organization will get sponsorship from the Bread for the World organization which is an American, non-partisan, and Christian movement. Its primary goal is to advocate for policy change by involving people and organizations in yearly campaigns that have a particular focus on issues relating to food and agriculture. Policy drafting will be done, posted and later communicated to the involved stakeholders. The entire drafting process will take one month while communication to the decision makers and board of management will be done within six months. The establishment and stocking of the food pantry will also be done within six months after approval of the policy by the stakeholders and management board.
Consequences
Each month, food banks face the monumental task of serving millions of pounds of fresh produce, meat, dairy, and shelf-stable food to hungry families. While doing this, food banks are faced with various challenges which put the entire program at risk of failure before they even implement it. Firstly, food banks specifically our organization, may face the challenge of correct data collection (Castañón et al., 2020). It is more difficult to track and gather follow-up data from families who move around a lot or are otherwise less stable, making it difficult to assess the effectiveness of a program. It can be challenging for food banks to explain impacts to funders, neighborhood stakeholders, and other potential participants without post-program data on participants. Ingeniously utilizing social media, our organization has been able to stay in touch with program participants who constantly move, enabling us to approach participants and keep track of the statistics.
Our organization may also face a challenge in a partnership due to its critical and complex nature. Our organization may need to develop a framework for collaborating with partners on data-sharing agreements and privacy to implement programs that offer wraparound services in collaboration with other agencies and organizations. Building enduring collaborations involves several different steps, including agreements on data-sharing and privacy. These collaborations may involve parties who have invested in joint programming, who exchange participant data, or who have banded together as program development thinking partners (Wetherill et al., 2019). The organization may also face a challenge as people with greater needs may face barriers to engaging in the programs. Getting needy people to participate in new programs might be challenging if they move around a lot or are preoccupied with other problems such as sickness. They do not have much time to devote to program needs under these circumstances.
Conclusion
Food deserts are an alarming issue of concern, especially for school-going children. This is because a lack of healthy food affects children both physically and mentally. Firstly, childhood obesity is a result of food deserts. These youngsters are compelled to eat what is available, leading them to lead unhealthy lives due to the abundance of fast food and the absence of nutritious food in these places. By becoming obese, they create a gateway for more mental and physical health issues including high blood pressure and cholesterol. Academic achievement is also hampered by food deserts. Poor nutrition results in students not developing properly and being unprepared to perform well and efficiently in school, which lowers academic achievement. Last but not least, type-2 diabetes is more likely to strike youngsters who live in food deserts. Diabetes is the seventh-leading cause of death in the United States.
School food pantries offer a lot more than just food. They help children overcome obstacles to their academic and social success, motivate parents to become more involved in their children’s education and development, and strengthen ties among students, parents, teachers, administrators, and members of the community. Our organization aims at providing intervention that will help counter the challenges associated with food deserts in schools and the community. By offering additional assistance to help individuals deal with their current challenges, our food bank organization will enable people to escape poverty and prevent them from using food banks in the future This may involve providing benefits counseling, mental health help, or debt advice. These interventions will be important in promoting overall food security and in the improvement of the nutritional status of the targeted parties. This will in turn result in improvement in the quality of life among the students and the community as a whole.
Reference
Allcott, H., Diamond, R., Dubé, J.-P., Handbury, J., Rahkovsky, I., & Schnell, M. (2019). Food deserts and the causes of nutritional inequality. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 134(4), 1793–1844. Web.
Castañón, R., Campos, F. A., Martínez, S. D., & Villar, J. (2020). The food bank of madrid: A linear model for optimal nutrition. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(21), 1–16. Web.
Wetherill, M. S., White, K. C., & Seligman, H. K. (2019). Nutrition-focused food banking in the United States: a qualitative study of healthy food distribution initiatives. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 119(10), 1653–1665. Web.
Widener, M. J. (2018). Spatial access to food: Retiring the food desert metaphor. Physiology and Behavior, 193(February), 257–260. Web.