Advocacy & Policy

Our History of Advocacy

From 2007-2015, Nuestras Raíces served as an original co-convener of Holyoke Food and Fitness Policy Council (HFFPC) with the Holyoke Health Center and Holyoke YMCA. From surveys, focus groups and interviews, our local community-generated evaluations tell us that over the last decade families in Holyoke and Springfield want to buy and cook fresh seasonal produce, learn healthy ways to prepare cultural meals, benefit from community grocery stores and mobile and farmers markets that sell affordable local fresh produce in their neighborhoods, garden in their cities, and advocate for delicious school meals for their children.

The ensuing Nuestra Comida Project (2015-2017) returned the fiscal and leadership convening role from the Holyoke Health Center to Latino-led Nuestras Raíces, and established strong partnerships and manageable goals for increasing family access to healthy food, developing markets for cultural crops, generating strong youth leaders, and improving school food.

Building from Nuestras Raíces’ early women’s leadership programs, Nuestra Comida is currently piloting a Community Leadership School to engage, teach, and empower community members to change the food system in Holyoke.

Together with Gardening the Community, Nuestra Comida has:

• formalized the Youth Justice dialogue partnership between Holyoke and Springfield youth leaders;
• is training a cohort of new finqueros (farmers) and developing markets for cultural crops;
• building new and rekindling old partnerships for a Food Hub;
• and convening a first annual Food Justice Conference.