Our Healthy Foodways for Peace Initiative

What do healthy foodways have to do with violence prevention?

Research (some of which is compiled at this web-page) shows that a nutrient-rich, balanced, healthy diet that is low-salt and low-sugar with fresh fruits and veggies helps minimize aggression in human beings.

Our Healthy Foodways for Peace initiative provides one daily, low-sodium, and low-sugar homemade meal with fresh fruit and vegetables at the McKim Center for every youth and family enrolled in our programming to uplift peace and combat food insecurity.

The fresh fruits and vegetables in the photo on this web-page are part of the daily homemade meal that we serve in our programs.

Serving fresh, nutritious food at every community gathering is foundational to the impact of our work. If community members' basic needs are not met (food security; affordable, safe, housing; well-paid employment; great healthcare; caring engagement from authorities like city agencies & the police), then they, understandably, often have trouble managing their emotions and their behavior.

Our whole-community, holistic foodways include the following:

☑️ One filling, nutrient-rich meal at every gathering of each of our programs that adheres to former First Lady Michelle Obama's MyPlate initiative emphasizing a balanced diet of fresh fruit, vegetables, proteins, & grains with lots of filtered, drinkable water.

☑️ Community participation in the preparing and serving of the meals so we're culturally sensitive to youth & families' wants and needs & so they co-own and are empowered by the foodways experience.

☑️ Homemade, in-house food-making (yes, our staff makes all meals ourselves each day in collaboration with community members).

☑️ Low-sodium, low-sugar ingredients emphasizing a minimum of processed products and preservatives.

☑️ A rigorous attention to food safety and disease prevention in food service with gloves, masking (if applicable), washing, and cleaning, as well as a close attention to safe food disposal and storage.

Our movement-organizing and community-building for violence prevention demands immersive, family-centered services.

We are embedded deep in the community of our enrollees, and this approach to foodways is part of our high impact.

We are changing the culture for peacemaking in the lives of the remarkable East Baltimorean youth, adults, and families enrolled in our programs.

Bowls filled with grapes, broccoli, and sliced bell peppers on a table.

Results for Our Healthy Foodways for Peace Initiative

Each year since 2022 (after the volatility of the COVID-19 pandemic), between 90 to 98 percent of our children, youth, and families consistently report on their surveys the following milestones for transformative foodways for peace:

✓ That our one, in-house homemade meal per day helps them combat food insecurity.

✓ That our the nutrient-rich, low-salt/low-sugar, yet intensely seasoned and well-herbed meals with fresh fruit and veggies as well as whole grains and lean protein helps them feel less agitated and aggressive.

✓ That our approach to buying, making, and sitting down as groups to eat the food collectively as enlightened community members makes youth and their families feel more inter-generationally bonded. Many have also disclosed that they live in homes within the housing projects where one or more parents may be working during meal times, and children and their families do not often get opportunities to sit down eat together as they do in our programming at the community center at least once per day.

✓ That their digestive and waste-elimination functions feel better and more regular.

✓ That they feel "cleaner" (a frequent word used) by the emphasis on only serving fresh, filtered water during each daily homemade community meal.