This summer I am working for Fresh Corner Caf\u00e9 on their food-access initiatives. We work in the Green Garage (GG), which in and of itself is incredible. It\u2019s a communal work space in which private businesses, non-profits, and individual employees rent space for their day-to-day work. Each business that works at the GG has to align with its values, which creates a more intimate, respectful community. The GG works to be as environmentally friendly as possible\u2013there is a compost, precise recycling methods, and the trash output is much smaller than the average for businesses across the country. Also the building is beautiful! It\u2019s all about open space and the wood has all been reused and refinished, making it a modern building with a lot of history. Not only is the building great, but because there are so many people with similar values working in the same space, there is a lot of overlap between the work being done there. Fresh Corner Caf\u00e9 is one of the three food-focused organizations in the building\u2013there\u2019s also Detroit Food Academy and FoodLab Detroit. These organizations work on issues similar to those we work on, however their methods vary. Overall, I\u2019ve found that I am able to learn about the work I\u2019m doing by hearing about the similar work other people are doing, and with that many people working so close together, we are bound to figure some things out!
\nSo, back to Fresh Corner (we\u2019ll call it FCC now). We are a business working to increase food access in Detroit and the surrounding counties (Wayne, Monroe, Macomb, and Oakland) by running \u201cpop-up\u201d markets and selling produce and our healthy products in gas stations and convenience stores. We do this by selling the food at subsidized prices, trying to eliminate the financial barrier between community members and nutritious food. Meanwhile, FCC also runs a catering company that helps to subsidize the costs of their other projects. Lastly, we run \u201cworkplace cafes\u201d where we sell our products in different business buildings as another method to subsidize the low-cost options we are providing. All of this work goes toward FCC\u2019s mission to provide healthy, affordable, and convenient food to the people of Detroit and the greater Detroit area.
\nMy summer research project is going to be about food-access and nutritional barriers throughout Detroit. I want to use my internship to learn about food disparities in Detroit, MI because I want to find out what is preventing people in the local community from eating well. I feel that once I understand this I will be able to help people have access to healthy foods and work towards fighting the obesity epidemic and other related health conditions. In addition to looking at transportation to and from the grocery store, I want to understand how socioeconomic status and cultural background influence people\u2019s food choices. I hope to understand the role that geographic location plays in the food equation, but I also hope to discover how culture and upbringing help people navigate through the infinite possibilities of what to eat. Furthermore, I want to understand the economic incentive behind people\u2019s food choices and if it\u2019s possible to solely use financial motives to change people\u2019s eating habits\u2013if the produce is the same price as the processed shelf-foods, would that be enough for people to buy the produce? I hope that through this internship I will be able to understand what factors lead people in Detroit, MI to make unhealthy food choices.
\nSo far, this program has been great because I\u2019ve been doing the work I want to be doing, while learning to navigate through a new city\u2013one much bigger than any I have ever lived in. I\u2019ve made great friends and overall, I truly think I am benefitting from this experience. I am also really excited to start reading The Origins of the Urban Crisis because I want to learn more about the history so I can contextualize all that I am learning in my day-to-day life here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This summer I am working for Fresh Corner Caf\u00e9 on their food-access initiatives. We work in the Green Garage (GG), which in and of itself is incredible. It\u2019s a communal work space in which private businesses, non-profits, and individual employees rent space for their day-to-day work. Each business that works at the GG has to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12211"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12211\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15786,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12211\/revisions\/15786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}