Posts

The Impact of Local Farmers Markets on the Foodscape

August 7, 2024

The Impact of Local Farmers Markets on the Foodscape

KPBS Midday Edition, August 6, 2024

By Jade Hindmon, Elaine Alfaro, Ashley Rusch, Jacob Aere

In case you missed it, Midday Edition on KPBS ran a fantastic piece on local farmers markets, food growers, and how the food landscape has changed drastically since the introduction of farmers markets to the local communities.

Project New Village was featured to give insight on how farmers markets are evolving to accommodate food scarce regions and make local produce accessible to all community members. This episode which aired on Tuesday, August 6th was insightful and informative, and very much worth the listen for anyone wishing to understand the meaning and impacts of food apartheid.

Listen Now - KPBS Midday Edition / The Impact of Local Farmers Markets on the Foodscape
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Social Justice

Health & Healing Summerfest

July 25, 2024

Health & Healing Summerfest is Back!

When: Saturday, August 24th, 9am to 1pm

Where: Educational Cultural Complex, 4343 Ocean View Blvd., SD 92113

Join us for a free summer event that connects community members to traditional and sustainable pathways for wellness. Featuring local vendors, agrarian activities, health information and screening, mindful movement activities, guest speakers, healthy food and refreshments, music, and a free swag bag full of goodies and community resources for all attendees!

Held on the south lawn and patio area of the Educational Cultural Complex (ECC) campus in Mountain View, this shaded outdoor venue offers the perfect setting for an event that connects health practitioners and local wellness businesses to community. With plenty of fun interactive activities, informational displays, music, dancing and more, the Health & Healing Summerfest is a family-friendly summer event not to be missed. Best of all, this year’s event is absolutely free!

The event is free and open to all, but the goodies are limited.

The event is open to everyone in the community, but our giveaway swag bags full of goodies and the free lunch from Fresheria we’ll be providing is limited, so reserve your spot by registering in advance!

Summerfest Registration Form
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Environmental Justice

Health Benefits of Growing Your Own Food

July 7, 2024

Health Benefits of Growing Your Own Food

Izzy Rosado, Program Assistant, Project New Village

Our Grower’s Collective members are continuing to spend valuable time among their gardens, providing fresh, hyper-local produce to our Mobile Farmer’s Market. This network of Southeastern growers connects with one another to share best regenerative growing practices. Any growing experience is welcome; we especially encourage first-time gardeners interested in transforming their backyards into food-growing spaces. Project New Village can provide both technical and financial assistance. 

Visit the market at any of our locations to check out macadamia nuts from Big Rock Ranch, fresh honey from Bee the Blessing, garlic from Sungrown Cumberland Estate, artichokes from Solwazi’s Farmacy, and more! Be sure to ask what produce was grown right here in the Southeastern communities and we’d like to thank you for helping to support our local growers!

In alignment with our upcoming Health and Healing event, we’d like to share a few of the health benefits that go along with growing your own food. The fundamental pillars of health can be broadly described in three categories – physical, mental/emotional, and social health. 

Physical:

  • Gardening activity provides great low-impact  exercise
  • Growing food encourages a healthier diet of fresh produce

Mental/Emotional:

  • Time spent in garden is considered therapeutic and grounding
  • Mental stimulation from learning new growing strategies and techniques
  • Increased self-esteem from seeing fruits of your labor

Social:

  • Building social capital by connecting with other gardeners and food growers
  • Enjoyment found from sharing produce with your community
  • Participating in community growing networks and fostering relationships with like-minded individuals

To get involved with the Grower’s Collective, please join our monthly meetings held every second Saturday at the Mt. Hope Community Garden from 9:00 to 10:30 a.m. Our next meeting will be August 10th; reach out to izzyrosado@projectnewvillage.org if you would like any further information. Thank you!

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Environmental Justice

N. Diane Moss Receives ‘Leaders in Belonging’ Award From Prebys Foundation

March 1, 2024

Prebys Foundation, the largest private foundation in the San Diego region, announced the recipients of its new Leaders in Belonging initiative. The effort provides unrestricted awards of $100,000 each to five community advocates working to advance inclusion, justice, and sustainability in the greater San Diego region. This annual award is designed to provide leaders with vital support that will allow them to continue their work and help them build movements for change.

N. Diane Moss, Managing Director of Project New Village is one of the five awardees. The award fund will be used to support organizational capacity building to create and operationalize “The Village”, which is our equitable food oriented development project. The Village will serve as a resiliency center for Southeastern San Diego. It will contain a neighborhood grocery store, healthier food eateries, a commercial kitchen, community garden and more.

As we make way for the future, we invite you to join our efforts to embrace food sovereignty and food justice in our neighborhoods!  Much gratitude to the Prebys Foundation!

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Social Justice

Expanding the Growers Collective

February 21, 2024

Izzy Rosado, Program Assistant, Project New Village

The Grower’s Collective is a network of neighbors that are passionate about gardening and growing food for our Southeastern communities. The goal of this project is to create health and wellness in the region, to form a community of practice through urban agriculture. 

How exactly do we do this? Project New Village hosts meetings for growers to share information and resources – demonstrating the power in learning from one another. To support our hyper-local food production, we purchase produce from neighborhood growers and provide financial and technical support to those that want to expand their growing efforts (or start growing!).

Karen Wynn found that her macadamia nut trees were producing more than she could harvest. In turn, dozens of pounds would go wasted every season. Now, we are purchasing these macadamia nuts to be sold on the Mobile Farmer’s Market truck, where customers get to put a name to a locally grown food source.

Another proud moment for the grower’s collective includes the expansion of WenMor Urban Farm, where PNV provided support for a tree planting event. Ian Moreland and Nichelle Wentz put 26+ bareroot trees in their backyard to start a food forest in the heart 

of Southeastern San Diego. 

If you would like to learn more on joining our Good Food District map, everyone is welcome to attend our meetings on the 2nd Saturday of the month at the Mt. Hope Community Garden from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m.

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Food Sovereignty

Community Climate Action

February 4, 2024

Amy Lint, Climate Solution Strategist, Project New Village

Environment and climate change directly affects us, by the air we breathe, the food we buy, how we live and get to work each day. With community organizations like ours, the city of San Diego now has a Climate Action Plan which outlines steps toward a more sustainable place to live, work and play.

You might wonder how you can contribute to this climate friendly vision? One of the strategies is Clean Communities. Now that we have received a green bin at our place of residence, food scraps and organic material can be recycled!

Recycling food scraps and other plant material plays an important part in keeping harmful methane gases out of our atmosphere. At Mt. Hope Community Garden, we take food scraps and carefully manage them to make heated piles of compost. The food scraps and plant materials break down and turn into rich nutrient compost material. Once the organic materials have gone through the heated process, we now have rich soil amendment for growing our food plants.

Learn more about how to recycle food scraps at home, how to compost, or ask questions every 3rd Saturday at Mt. Hope Community Garden. Join in on hands-on composting demonstrations. We look forward to seeing you there!

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Environmental Justice