Nutrition is our Tradition

This ad is part of Youth Leadership Institute's new campaign to improve nutrition in Bayview.

Youth Leadership Institute

A group of five youth from Bayview Hunters Point have been working on building the demand for healthy food in their community, for the past year, through a social marketing campaign.

These five young people, known as the Nutrition Soldiers, surveyed the community to determine what types of healthy messages might resonate. "Nutrition is Our Tradition" was the message of choice, and has since been embraced by community residents, organizations, businesses, and youth.

In addition to seeing it here in Bayview Footprints Local News, you will be seeing the "Nutrition Is Our Tradition" campaign message along 3rd street on billboards, bus shelters, and storefronts. You'll also be seeing posters on the MUNI light rail and bus. In addition, there are two beautiful murals up at All Good Pizza on 3rd and Jerrold.

If you happen to come across one of the posters, billboards, murals, or ads, please take a photo (with you in the picture) and send it to us. We would love to start a collage of photos of the marketing campaign.

A huge thank you to our community partners, including SEFA Food Guardians, Bayview HEAL Zone, and SF Dept. of Public Health's Community Transformation Initiative. Also amazing were 3rd Street Youth Center program coordinator, Ronnishia, who designed the campaign logo, and our graphic designer, Amanda, and our two mural artists, Aaron and Carolyn.

A big shout out to the young leaders who made this all happen: Mary, Charleshon, Mariah, Dennis, and Rheema!

We hope to plan a celebration in November so stay tuned!

Food victories in Bayview (and Visitacion Valley!)

Elliott Johnson knows Bayview's food news isn't all bad.  Photo Footprints 2008

The closing of the Fresh and Easy market on 3rd Street last week was a blow to advocates for plentiful and healthy food in the Bayview Hunters Point neighborhood. But that's just the bad news. 

A new Grocery Outlet supermarket will open in Visitacion Valley on Bayshore Boulevard and Sunnydale Avenue, if all goes well at the City Planning Commissions meeting this Thursday. 

 

That is the very good news that came out today in a SF Chronicle article by John Wildermuth.

 

While still a trek for many Bayview residents, the store adds to existing food options which include FoodsCo on Williams and SuperSave on 3rd Street.

 

Other good news is that the Fresh and Easy store closure may have sparked more widespread concern.  One resident has started a petition to attract a Trader Joe's to the neighborhood.  Supervisor Malia Cohen, in a response to the Fresh and Easy closure, said she wants to any new business going into the newly empty commercial space to be a food retailer. 

 

Bayview Footprints and Quesada Gardens Initiative have been covering the topic since early 2007, and has seen a related up-tick in online traffic.  Footprints' community coverage of the issue has been supported by the Bayview HEAL Zone and has featured content contributions from the SEFA Food Guardians...groups heavily engaged in improving food access in the area.  See 173 food topic posts on It's What Community Looks Like.

 

SEFA, which stands for Southeast Food Access, is a multisector collaboration co-chaired by Michael Janis, General Manager of the SF Wholesale Produce Market, and Jacob Moody Executive Director of the BVHP Foundation for Community Improvement.  The collaboration is an example of the SF Department of Public Health's leadership, and that agency's understanding of the  connections between food access and the health of residents. Find SEFA online.

 

SEFA has been meeting since 2007, and has made inroads into defining what it means to be a healthy food retailer, has worked with corner store owners to improve what those outlets offer, and has trained residents to become community health ambassadors. 

 

Youth Leadership Institute is also advocating for residents' health through a marketing campaign that has engaged youth with regard to food and nutrition.  By arrangement with YLI, Footprints will bring you some of the results of that campaign in October and November editions.

 

Today's food news isn't all bad for Bayview, and is part of an ongoing story of a great neighborhood reclaiming itself.

Bayview youth care about healthy food

These neighborhood youth care about food access. From left to right (standing) are Tyrone Wolfe,Maurice Ross, Delvahn Emerson, Rolando Hill, Kelvin Bibbs, (kneeling) Zakariya Shaikh, Program Coordinator Brandon Lee, and Tyson Do.

If you think that teens don't care about food and health, consider 17 year old Tyrone Wolfe who is a junior at Thurgood Marshall Academic High School.

He witnessed his grandmother's struggle with diabetes, a battle she ultimately couldn't win, and came to believe that better access to good food in the neighborhood would have helped.

"Healthy food is a right of life," Tyrone said recently, "and should be available to all people regardless of where they live."

Tyrone and other students at Thurgood Marshall want to increase access to healthy snacks in the convenience stores that surround their school, an area rife with fast food outlets and liquor stores. They have formed the Nutritional Food Group with the support of the San Francisco-based Youth Leadership Institute. The students hope to convince local food retailers to provide teen-friendly choices that are healthier than what is currently offered.

See lots more about the evolving food scene in BayviewHunters Point, right here on It's What Community Looks Like, Bayview's longest running blog.