Since its founding in 2016, the Goshen Market Foundation has sought to widen access to healthy, local food and educate the public about nutrition and agriculture. We feel that we haven’t always addressed the factors at play which prevent access to fresh, healthy, local food (among other privileges) from being truly equitable and available to all people. Racism is not relegated to acts of violence or hostility against people of color but instead is a widespread, societal system that privileges white people at the expense of people of color, and we realize that we, in our inaction and in our practices as an organization, are complicit.
We acknowledge that poverty or inaccessibility is not limited to a particular race; however, privilege, especially as it relates to food access, is. White people in this country, overwhelmingly, have easier access to food and fewer barriers to entry to buy, own, or cultivate land. They are more likely to know—or be related to—a farmer or food producer. They have access to better nutrition education and are less likely to live (generationally) in a food desert. They are more likely to live in a community with a farmer’s market.
Although we have made efforts to be a part of the solution—by mobilizing the Beet Box to reach low-access communities, and by implementing matching programs for SNAP recipients—we can and will do more.
The Goshen Market Foundation will:
- Cultivate a board of directors that is racially reflective of the community we serve;
- Recruit and empower black vendors to participate in the Goshen Market and sell produce to the Beet Box;
- Make a commitment to purchase necessary goods from black-owned businesses when possible;
- Commit to installing schoolyard gardens in Black communities;
- Increase the number and frequency of stops of our mobile market to better serve people of color.
We believe, unequivocally, that all lives will not matter until Black lives do. Thank you for joining us in our fight to become a more just, equitable, and community-loving organization.