Community Plan for Target:Hunger Springfield

Target:Hunger Springfield is a community organizing project affecting the Mason Square area of Springfield. It is a multi-sector partnership of more than two dozen organizations and individuals, including social service agencies, communities of faith, and concerned residents working together to reduce hunger in the area by 10% in four years while increasing food security for everyone in the community. Toward the goal of ending this great want in the midst of plenty, the Target:Hunger Springfield partners have drafted this six-point Community Plan.

Strategy 1: Connect residents with existing community resources to help them increase their food security, by creating a map and directory of food resources and other supports in the area and by supporting local use of the Food Resource Hotline.

Strategy 2: “Everyone is an outreach worker!” – Create an informed, motivated grassroots “army” of people who can encourage residents to enroll in food stamps and help guide them through the process. Include medical personnel, clergy, and schools in the “army”.

Strategy 3: Help community members share and build skills to increase food security – through gardening, cooking, budgeting, and nutrition education.

Strategy 4: Improve community infrastructure to increase food security. This involves creating transportation links, establishing and expanding existing and new community gardens, establishing and expanding local farmers’ market, working with existing markets to increase the availability of fresh, local, and culturally appropriate produce and initiating farm-to-school and farm-to-summer programs (whereby food service programs buy from local farmers).

Strategy 5: Build the capacities of programs and institutions in Mason Square to help their clients/members achieve greater food security. This includes offering trainings in resources available to the agencies or to their clients, conducting food rescue and food drives, establishing an infant formula pantry and increasing community awareness around breastfeeding, and creating and coordinating a Capacity Building Learning Project sub-group where the members of this sub-group will transfer the skills and knowledge they gain to other Target:Hunger and Mason Square programs and institutions.

Strategy 6: Advocate for resources, policy changes, and programs to increase food security. This includes creating community awareness about the Target:Hunger Springfield project and the issues of food security, identifying and tracking primary and proxy data on hunger and food insecurity in Mason Square, conducting a public awareness campaign about the costs of hunger and food insecurity to the business sector, educating students at local colleges about hunger and food security and engaging student activism, educating social service providers about links between hunger, food security and other visible social issues, participating in the annual Hunger Awareness Day activities, and sharing with the public what we learn about creating community-based strategies to increase food security.