Topics: Nutrition
Growing up in New Orleans, LA I was raised on an unparalleled staple of foods that other people travel from thousands of miles away to experience. The intersection of a rich Catholic history and a bayou-based locality made Friday Fish fries the norm. Recounting the scent of red beans & rice, gumbo, jambalaya, and po-boys elicit a euphoric sense of nostalgia for a childhood diet that trumps my current one.
While we are a city known for our food, the tragic irony is that too many citizens of New Orleans do not have access to grocery stores that serve a diverse and healthy array of options. This inequity has been amplified since Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Supermarkets that did once exist have not returned, and many are finding that they must travel more than 10 miles to find the closest fruit or vegetable. For many families, especially for those who don’t have cars, the cost-benefit analysis of taking two or three buses to reach a grocery store that is already more expensive than you may be able to afford — right after work, after picking your children up from school, among the host of other quotidian tasks so many of us experience – is unfeasible.
This is why initiatives such as Wendell Pierce’s Sterling Farms grocery store can serve as an important model for what purposeful investment in a community can look like. Pierce, a native New Orleanian who has starred in both The Wire and Treme, has begun a chain of grocery and convenient stores in New Orleans carrying fresh, healthy foods in neighborhoods labeled food deserts with the hope that it will serve as an exemplar to show that a viable community-centered business model can exist. These sorts of projects are critical for our students and their families. When our students aren’t getting the food and nutrients they need, it hinders their ability to succeed in the classroom. Whether it is New Orleans or Washington DC, food deserts are real, and unless we have business leaders who are willing to step up to the plate, these communities will continue to suffer.
Take a look Wendell Pierce’s project here.