Student Work

Description of the video:

Person pushing a full grocery cart across a parking lot.

Narrator: Food deserts a problem plaguing neighborhoods across Central Indiana

Maps of Indiana counties shaded in different colors

Narrator: Taking a look at the food desert issue…

Narrator: Food deserts they’re typically impoverished areas where it’s difficult to buy affordable or good quality fresh food

Images of food pantry and fresh fruit and vegetables.

Narrator: Low-income households often turn to less nutritious processed foods because it’s cheaper and can be bought in bulk. Farmer’s markets and organic farming offer helpful opportunities as an alternative to junk food

Alternating images of urban neighborhoods, convenient stores filled with junk food, and fresh produce in a farmer’s market

Kelsey: My name is Kelsey Campbell Cedar Valley Farm is my partner and I Stewart’s family farm that we started in 2012.

Image of Kelsey holding her child in her lap, and then walking through their greenhouse.

Megan: I am Megan Betts and I’m the CEO and president at Mother Hubbard’s cupboard which is a community food resource center

Megan sitting in her office

Megan: Food insecurity is the inability to consistently purchase or procure adequate food for your household or for yourself

Kelsey: People aren’t really thinking about what they consume or the way that it’s consumed or where it’s grown. People aren’t able to be the kind of consumer that you can be when you have access to resources and access to food

Video of tomatoes and other produce growing on the farm

Megan: The challenges that Mother Hubbard’s cupboard faces right now are I think that we’re just –hunger is never going to just end we’re never going to be able to grow to a place where we’re adequately meeting demand — and how do we make sure that while folks are needing our services they’re still feeling really engaged in the community, they’re still having autonomy and food choice and feeling empowered to have the diet that they want

Images of various farmer’s market vendors selling their produce

Megan: The impact that we’re seeing on folks as they navigate food insecurity is an exhaustion. It takes so much time to work numerous jobs navigate making sure your car works or your bus routes are functioning so that you can get to those jobs

Cars driving down the road; person waiting at the bus stop

Megan: So that means all of these folks are one moment away from having their whole financial situation kind of thrown up into the air and need to restructure

Image of food panty; fresh bunches of carrots; a kid harvesting an eggplant; a goat and pig on the farm.

Megan: The Bloomington community at large is supporting and partnering with farmer. So, I think if we think about hunger not as a scarcity problem or an under-production problem but as a distribution problem, right, we have enough food to feed everyone. But how we’re moving the food through the community just isn’t efficient.

Produce boxes and greenhouse

Kelsey: We’re fortunate in this community to have access to so many resources so in Bloomington specifically donating food and giving people access to food and hosting events to teach people how easy it is if you have the means to grow your own food process your own food and eat healthy I think that’s something that if you’re food insecure for one it might not be the top of your list at all of a priority and that’s okay too

Images of family greenhouse; then Kelsey’s young child cutting up zucchini; the more fresh produce at the farmer’s market

Kelsey: But if it’s something that you’re working towards that it’s not as intimidating as it seems and the answer to solving food insecurity is going to be on a small scale. It’s going to be small farms like ours and community it’s not ever going to be large commercialized food, because as I’m sure you know they already make enough food, and that’s not the issue

Kelsey walks away from the camera in her garden holding her child’s hand.