Like that OutKast reference? I’m with Fresh Corner Café this summer. My supervisors are Noam Kimmelman and Valaurian Waller. If you didn’t already read this or hear me say this (which is probably unlikely at this point), Noam is a recipient of Forbes 2016 30 under 30 Award for Social Entrepreneurs, which is both profoundly exciting and intimidating. Don’t get me wrong; Val & Noam are both extraordinarily approachable people. Perhaps too approachable at times, even. They’re the youngest bosses I’ve ever had and as a result, I have trouble treating them as bosses and supervisors instead of colleagues or older siblings. Thankfully, I think they prefer that sort of communication and rapport. In truth, neither of them seem comfortable being treated as superiors or experts. For example, Val has expressed a certain amount of anxiety about her newly-discovered adulthood. In Noam’s case, I think he made fairly sure that Aries, he, and I were the most underdressed people at the Motion Coalition Conference. Granted, he also knew that there would be a fitness video smack dab in the middle of the panels and a suit would be less-than-ideal work out clothing, but still.
Fresh Corner’s deal, as I understand it, is this: we combat food insecurity by bringing nutritious food to the people and communities that need it most. There may be a number of convenience stores nearby our locations, but the food that CVS sells is usually very processed and high in non-nutritious sugars and fats. We sell our food fairly dirt-cheap so that nutrition is not only financially accessible but within a distance that is either walkable or where community members would already be anyway like YMCA’s, schools, and senior centers. Our merchandise includes all manner of fresh produce, granola bars, salads, wraps, soups, chips, jams; you name it.
My project promises to expose me to both the front and back-end of the triple bottom line business. This means that I will not only be revitalizing social media, orchestrating wellness workshops, researching the geonutritional impact that our Pop-Ups have, and laying the groundwork for a compost system at our production facility but also selling, serving, making, and moving the food itself into the community. The last bit is the part for which I am most excited.
I love interacting with the Detroit communities and meeting people unlike anyone I’ve ever met. Everyone from the seniors at University Meadows to the kids at Detroit Achievement have been a delight to serve. In fact, despite the daunting nature of entering a completely unfamiliar workplace, most everyone with whom I’ve worked has been the very same. This is a little optimistic, perhaps, but I feel as if I do and will have a lot of great folks in my corner this summer. I guessed that this would be the case but the first week at a new job can be jarring and, at times, disheartening. I’m so glad that I’ve got a team like Fresh Corner and the good folks of DCBRP.
Charlie,
It’s really great how you will be directly interacting with the community in such a crucial way. When I was a lifeguard at the YMCA, for lunch, the children would get snacks generously donated and funded by a similar program. I was told that often this was the children’s only avenue for healthy food… or food at all. It is sad but also uplifting to know that our work this summer is crucial to the livelihood of future generations.
Ps. I do like the OutKast reference.