Buffalo Rising Online

Apr 30th, 12:20pm By Elena Cala Buscarino

As reported here last week, the Massachusetts Avenue Project was in the running for a financial award from the 21st Century Fund in order to start a Community Food Resource Center (CFRC). Announced last night at Buffalo Academy of Visual and Performing Arts, the award will go a long way to help Map's efforts.

Massachusetts Avenue Project Growing Green Outreach Coordinator Erin Sharkey has referred to the Food Desert that exists on the West Side and elsewhere in the community, noting that the food available and the distance traveled in order for residents to obtain good, fresh food creates hardships, both personal and environmental.

According to Sharkey, the newly proposed center will focus on boosting local food sourcing and food access for the neighborhood, providing a regional hub for community building and local economic activity. MAP now operates their Growing Green HQ out of the former library on Grant Street.

MAP moved to their current location after their offices, which housed a community kitchen burned to the ground. It's been a steep and fruitful upward climb ever since. With the procurement of the current location, a greenhouse being built by UB architecture students, a Mobile Market, community kitchen, and their designation as a CSA drop-off, Map is becoming a powerful friend to the community.

According to Growing Green Program Director Diane Picard, " We've been looking over a lot of available spaces in the Grant/Ferry District, and I believe we have it narrowed down to one building right on Grant Street." MAP would move their operation into the building, which also houses a commercial kitchen. "We have been renting a church kitchen for our 10 entrepreneurs, but it's not ideal because we have to share it."

Other than instructing students in business planning and farming while looking at the environmental, economic and social issues of local food sourcing, MAP has plans to outfit a house they own next to their Massachusetts Avenue garden/greenhouse with classrooms to help community members with all aspects of food production and also instruct them in canning what they grow.

Through work with Dr. Samina Raja at the University of Buffalo, Picard said that they have identified Food Deserts on the East Side as well as the West Side, and through Dr. Raja's findings, they will take their Mobile Market to these areas this summer so that residents will have access to fresh produce where it is needed most.

"We're also looking at job training and green jobs related to the food system," Picard said. "For instance, there is one local beef processor. Many of the area farmers are faced with taking their livestock to Pennsylvania because [the beef processor] can't keep up with demand. He's 60, and it would be good if there were someone to come in behind him to fill that need."

While the $100K will help to buy the new building, Picard hopes it will be the catalyst for many more local foundations to join MAP's efforts in their simple, yet far reaching goals in bettering local quality of life issues.

Picard was also happy to announce that MAP recently won a national competition through Organic Gardening Magazine (see Growing Green Youth Garden, Buffalo NY) that will net them a 1,000 gallon rainwater catch-all system to be installed this summer.

MAP CFRC statement: Supporting the infrastructure of a local food system helps support family farms, protects the environment, promotes greater food access and safety, and strengthens our local economy. MAP believes the CFRC will provide a way for these benefits to flourish, improving the food system for everyone in Buffalo and WNY.

Believe it.

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