Recruiting a Hunger Free America/ AmeriCorps VISTA member for Madison Area Food Pantry Gardens (MAFPG) to partially support the effort. It’s a 12-month full time (35 hours per week) role with a capacity building focus exploring whether MAFPG should be engaged in activities related to increasing access to produce to neighbors in need outside of growing and gleaning in our 7-month season. As you can see in the position description and VISTA Associate Description (VAD), you are key stakeholders based on your roles in relevant local non-profits, the health system, and local health insurance.
Key objectives include:
• Create a descriptive inventory of programs in the state of Wisconsin that increase nutrition security through expanded community-level produce access.
• Develop a summary of the Dane County Double Dollars program (a public benefit that provides money for groceries to low-income individuals and families) funding, number of recipients, locations, administration, and capacity building activities, as well as opportunities for program growth.
• Develop a descriptive inventory of community (Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin), health system (UW Health), and payor (Quartz Health Solutions) approaches to increase access to produce.
• Develop a report describing MAFPG opportunities and challenges to diversifying approaches to increasing community-level access to fresh produce beyond growing and gleaning. (MAFPGs’ mission: Striving to help our neighbors by providing local food pantries with first-choice, fresh, nutritious, and culturally relevant produce.)
• Collaborate with one or more community partners to develop a proposal for expanding MAFPG capacity and diversifying approaches to providing access to produce outside current seasonal gleaning and growing strategies.
If you have someone in mind for this VISTA role, please encourage them to apply by 6/7. Please also feel free to share in your other channels so we can successfully recruit someone to work collaboratively in this role.
In community health,
Brian Arndt