Tarrant Area Food Bank
Geraldine Williams, Ms. Jherre to everyone who knows her, first moved to the Historic Southside neighborhood 50 years ago as a child. Back then, she says, there were two grocery stores for people to shop at — one at the corner of Bessie and New York avenues and another one on Kentucky Avenue. She said they had butcher counters, fresh seafood, and all different kinds of produce.
As an adult, she moved around but relocated to her childhood neighborhood 20 years ago. Now, all the grocery stores have left, and there’s not a single place to purchase fresh, healthy food near her.
“We didn't have to go across town,” she says. “We didn't have to catch a bus. We had two grocery stores right here in this area. But now, corn, carrots, fruit, vegetables … we don’t have stuff like that.”
In Tarrant County, 22% of households have no vehicle and live more than a mile from a full-service grocery store or supermarket. That’s nearly 1 in 4 (a statistic provided by the Tarrant Area Food Bank) households for whom access to a variety of fresh and affordable foods like fruits and vegetables is a struggle.
But the issue of low food access is not going unnoticed. Tarrant County groups like the Tarrant Area Food Bank, Tarrant County Food Policy Council, Blue Zones Project, and other grassroots efforts are all working to bring healthy, affordable food to these underserved neighborhoods.
WHAT’S IN A NAME
Researchers, media, and legislators have commonly referred to low-income areas with limited access to fresh food as “food deserts” since the early 1990s, but the term itself is a misnomer. The buzzword paints a picture of barren, desolate places lacking value due to nature's acts. So, some are abandoning that term, saying that calling neighborhoods like Historic Southside “food deserts” ignores the fact that vibrant communities live here and their lack of access to healthy foods is a systemic socioeconomic issue, not a natural occurrence.
Using the right language while talking about food insecurities is hugely important, says Funkytown Fridge Founder Kendra Richardson, who uses the term “food apartheid” when discussing the issue that disproportionately affects Black and Hispanic communities.
“When we say food apartheid, we're saying that to highlight all of the systemic issues, instead of blaming the people that are living in those neighborhoods who don't necessarily have the power to change their living conditions,” she says.
THE NUMBERS
The USDA identifies areas with low food access based on certain criteria thresholds of census tracts.
They qualify as "low‐income communities" based on having a poverty rate of 20% or greater or a median family income at or below 80% of the area median family income.
Additionally, tracts qualify as "low‐access communities" based on the determination that at least 500 persons and/or at least 33% of the census tract's population live more than one mile from a supermarket or large grocery store. (Ten miles in the case of nonmetropolitan census tracts.)
In 2013, the United States Department of Agriculture declared 11 ZIP codes as low-income/ low-access food areas. According to TAFB, that translated to an estimated 280,000 Fort Worth residents who didn’t have reliable access to full-service grocery stores at the time.
Many ZIP codes, like Historic Southside’s 76104, remain without a single grocery store. As a result, communities like these are faced with a difficult choice ― to rely on convenience stores and fast-food restaurants prevalent in the area that offer mainly processed foods, like chips, candy, and sodas, low in nutrients or travel (often by bus or on foot) to grocers outside their neighborhood.
But on Ms. Jherre’s block, buses aren’t even an option, and the area isn't pedestrian-friendly.
“The transit system here in this area has been cut,” she says. “I remember when I could go to the end of the block at Tennessee or up on New York and catch a bus. There are no buses that come through here now.”
FOOD ACCESS & HEALTH
A study by UT Southwestern found that residents of the 76104 ZIP code have the lowest life expectancy in Texas at 66.7 years compared to the Tarrant County average of 78.7 years. The second lowest in the state is neighboring ZIP code 76105, which encompasses the Stop Six and Polytechnic neighborhoods, whose residents have an average life expectancy of 70.6 years.
It’s no coincidence that lack of access to fresh, healthy food leads to poor health. Conditions like high blood pressure, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity are all food-related health issues that contribute to the people in these communities living, on average, 12 years less than their neighbors in other areas of the county with greater food access.
“It’s stressful living here,” Williams says.
IT’S MORE THAN JUST DISTANCE
By focusing too closely on proximity, the issue of food access can be oversimplified. For example, if the problem is simply that a neighborhood doesn’t have a grocery store, then the easy solution would be to open one in the area. But the answer is far from easy.
“Grocery stores are in the business of making money, and margins are very, very slim already,” Tarrant Area Food Bank President Julie Butner says. “Sometimes cities and municipalities will give them tax incentives to put in a grocery store. But as soon as those tax incentives are gone, they pull back out again because they can't be profitable.”
On top of profitability, a 2021 report from Congressional Research Service says that policies focused on providing more supermarkets detract from other initiatives like domestic food program benefits, incentives for farmers markets, or addressing other barriers like income, employment, education, and mobility.
THE EFFECTS OF COVID-19 & INFLATION
COVID-19 and inflation have only exasperated the issue of food insecurities over the last few years.
Butner says it’s harder than ever for TAFB to operate.
“We have been spending unbudgeted dollars on food,” she says about the current cost of operating the food bank. “What happens during high-inflation times is your donors don't have as much surplus to donate. So, financial contributions go down due to inflation.”
There’s a greater need for resources, too. With the rising cost of living and stagnant wages, more people are turning to organizations like the food bank for help.
“Just for the basic things needed to live — rent, utilities, gas, and food — just those four things in Tarrant County today you need [to make] $20 an hour,” she says.
With an increase in needs and a decrease in donations, Butner says they may not have enough food available.
But things weren’t improving before the pandemic, either. As the population of Tarrant County grows, so does disparity — things just get worse.
TAFB Vice President of Community Impact Vicky Martinez, who grew up in a low-income area of Northside, Houston, and experienced food insecurities herself, says the situation is bad right now.
“Food supplies are less,” she says. “Government giving is less. Retail giving is less, you know, it's just less. And then the need is more. So, it's hard. It's very hard. It has not gotten better. It has gotten worse.”
WHAT’S BEING DONE
Tarrant Area Food Bank
The Tarrant Area Food Bank is the primary source of donated food for hunger-relief charities and feeding programs in Tarrant and 12 surrounding counties, serving 1 million meals each week. Butner says the most food goes to the areas with the highest need.
“I distribute the food equitably,” she says. “So, if 6% of my total food insecure population is in 76104, then 6% of my food is going to that ZIP code so that I'm addressing food insecurity in the best, most equitable way that I can.”
She goes on to say that government programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a program that provides low-income individuals and families an Electronic Benefits Transfer card to purchase eligible food in authorized retail food stores, are the most impactful in the fight against food insecurities, but that Tarrant County has statistically low enrollment in these assistance programs.
“My 13 counties are some of the highest counties where we have people who are eligible for that assistance, but they are not enrolled,” she says. “It's not easy to enroll. It takes about an hour. You have to have technology to do it. Some languages are not covered. So, unless you speak English or speak Spanish, you might have difficulty filling out the information. But it's a beautiful benefit because it's a federally funded program, and the dollars have already been appropriated to our counties and to our cities. It's not an added expense to anybody who lives here locally.”
So TAFB’s three R.E.D. (Resources Education Delivered) buses travel around the food bank’s service areas with iPad stations and translators to help the community enroll in benefits. Sometimes, eligible community members can have benefits on their cards as early as the same day.
But the food bank does so much more than just distribute food. From organizing community learning gardens to senior and youth programs to hands-on job training programs for aspiring chefs, TAFB has a multifaceted approach to addressing food insecurities in the community.
Farmers Markets and Community Gardens
In White Settlement, another area with low access to fresh foods, Cowtown Farmers Market sets up tables of colorful fruits and vegetables, proteins, and more for the community to buy directly from local farmers. It's the longest-running farmers market in Fort Worth and one of the few in the area that accepts WIC and SNAP benefits to purchase food. And to stretch benefits further, the Double Up Food Bucks program, funded by Blue Zones Project, will match dollar for dollar of benefits up to $30 a day.
When relocating last August, it was important to the market to find a location with a need.
“In the city of White settlement itself, there's not a lot of access to healthy food,” Cowtown Farmers Market Manager Becca Knutson says. “So, they were excited to be able to bring something there to help their residents.”
All of the food at the market comes from farmers within a 150-mile radius. But, similarly, teaching and supporting people to grow food in their own backyard is a way to address food access, too.
Grow Southeast is an initiative that provides resources to launch new community-owned and operated urban farms in southeast Fort Worth neighborhoods like Ms. Jherre’s. Since 2018, they’ve worked to develop four farms — Opal’s Farm (named after Opal Lee), Mind Your Garden, Tabor Farm, and Maudia Farms.
“People get an experience when they participate in a community garden,” Knutson says. “They learn how to grow their own food. They might learn about different vegetables they want to try. So, I think it's a valuable experience.”
Blue Zones Project
In 2015, the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce and Texas Health Resources kicked off the Blue Zones Project, a community-led initiative to improve the well-being of Fort Worth, residents. Although the scope of their work over the years has been broad, much of it focuses on providing healthy food to underserved communities.
With initiatives like Double Up Food Bucks, Good for You Pantries that distribute fresh foods in schools, and the Fresh Access program that provides produce to children, families, and seniors at neighborhood community centers, Blue Zones Project aims to make healthy choices easier.
“We are focused on systems change to improve access to fresh food for all residents,” Vice President Mike Dufrene says in their 2022 impact report. “We support nutrition education and school and community gardens, and we've delivered over 665,850 pounds of fruits and vegetables to communities in need.”
Tarrant County Food Policy Council
Knutson is also the current chair of the Tarrant County Food Policy Council, a volunteer-run nonprofit organization of representatives from all aspects of Tarrant County's food system.
“It's meant to be a place where we can network,” she says. “We can have conversations about what's happening in our county, in our food system. We can share resources, we can learn from each other, help each other, get our organizations to work together, and try to improve the healthy food system on a larger collaborative scale.”
The council has working groups that focus on specific areas of the food system. The groups work on projects and resources for community gardens, children's health, food recovery, and food policy.
The working groups and bimonthly networking meetings are open to anyone who is interested in attending.
Community Fridges
Community members are also taking their own initiatives, without any government assistance, to help provide access to healthy food in low-access areas. Richardson, who grew up in Stop Six, learned about the impact of community fridges and decided to start Funkytown Fridge in September 2020.
She now operates three fridges in underserved areas of Fort Worth (two in the Polytechnic neighborhood and one at the regional Goodwill on Campus Drive), with three more fridge locations planned for later this year. When considering where to set up each fridge, Richardson says the area must have a need.
“They don't have access to grocery stores or healthy food,” she says of the fridge locations. “There’s a really big houseless population around, and a lot of kids and families.”
Since starting Funkytown Fridge, Richardson says she’s seen great support. The group receives donations from all over the country. Local community members stop by and fill the fridges with any approved food items, and people who live further away donate money or items through the organization’s Amazon wish list.
She hopes the fridges inspire people to be creative in how they show up for their community.
“Even if it’s not through Funkytown Fridge, what is it that you have that you possess that you can give?’ she asks.
Revitalization
In April 2020, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development awarded Fort Worth Housing Solutions a $35 million Choice Neighborhoods Implementation grant. The Stop Six Choice Neighborhood initiative leverages the grant to revitalize the southeast Fort Worth neighborhood with mixed-income housing, community resources, and infrastructure.
Revitalization is met with mixed feelings, though. While mixed-income housing would make Stop Six more desirable to businesses like grocery stores, residents like Richardson are skeptical and worry that the revitalization is just gentrification.
When the Stop Six project started, Richardson says, residents were offered vouchers to move during the construction of the new housing development. Not only did she say the vouchers weren’t enough to cover relocation expenses, but she was also concerned that the cost of the new housing wouldn’t be affordable for old residents to move back.
“They say they want to make the neighborhood better,” she says. “They want to increase, and they want to build. Okay. Then you can do that while I’m living in my own home,” she said of the revitalization.
Ms. Jherre is concerned about revitalization, too, and what it would mean for her property taxes.
“I don’t want my taxes to go up just because you decided to come out and build a house,” she says.
WAYS TO HELP
Richardson says a strong community is key to solving complex problems like food access. Whether it’s volunteering, donating money, or advocating for policy change, getting involved can make a difference.
Volunteer
TAFB has many opportunities for individuals and groups to volunteer their time. Whether planning a teambuilding activity with coworkers to sort food donations or giving time to help with one of their mobile markets, volunteers are the organization's backbone.
“I don't think we could afford to do it if we didn't have the volunteers,” says Butner.
People interested in helping out with community fridges can register as a volunteer online at funkytownfridge.org. They also regularly post calls to action on their Instagram @fridgetalktv.
The Food Policy Council also lists several different volunteer opportunities in the area online.
Donate
Both Funkytown Fridge and Grow Southeast have wish lists on their websites. Anyone can stop by and fill a fridge with approved food items at any time. And of course, donating money directly to all of the organizations above, no matter the amount, is always impactful.
Advocate
Whether it’s at the local, state, or federal level, make your voice heard.
The food bank and Food Policy Council both share advocacy resources on their websites.
LOOKING FORWARD
Butner says the last three years have been “incredible in terms of new initiatives” and is excited to keep up the momentum.
The food bank has big plans for 2023, including a plan that’s in the works to offer home delivery options to SNAP recipients, a produce sorting facility that will be able to process and distribute fresh fruit and vegetables, more pantry locations inside of schools and medical facilities, more partnerships, and helping more people.
Blue Zones Project plans to expand its efforts with school gardens, Good for You Pantry locations, Fresh Access, Double Up Food Bucks, and many other important community initiatives.
And Funkytown Fridge is excited about the three new fridges it plans to set up this year.
Ms. Jherre, who is secretary of the History Southside Neighborhood Association, says her community knows what her community needs. The association meets the second Sunday of every month at Southside Community Center to discuss issues impacting residents.
She says to fix issues like food access, people need to do a better job of listening to community members. With enough resources and better communication from city leaders, she says neighborhoods like hers could revitalize themselves effectively, and she’ll continue to advocate for that.
“I'm always, always for my neighborhood because I live here,” she says, with no intentions of ever leaving.
