Strengthening Food Security in Phoenix Metro

The Fresh Food Collaboration Movement (FFC) is a collaborative effort between Green Living Magazine and Urban Farming Education. The movement seeks to alleviate food scarcity and food access issues caused by the COVID-19 outbreak. They do this by partnering with local farms and food providers to create boxes with fresh produce, fresh bread, and other organic treats to distribute to low income families in the Phoenix valley. Volunteers from around the city come together to help assemble the boxes for distribution.

When the FFC reached out to GreenLight Solutions, they outlined their main areas for growth as expanding their distribution locations, finding new metrics to engage their community, finding new food partnerships, and creating visual ways for the organization to communicate their impact.

Working on this project was extremely beneficial to both the local Phoenix community and the FFC GreenLight Project Team. After promising one new lead for a source of food donations, we were actually able to deliver three new leads to the Project Partner. Two leads are restaurants in the Phoenix area and the other is a local aquaponics farm. All three locations have a regular surplus of food that usually ends up being thrown away and taken to the landfills. Decaying food produces methane gas, making food waste a huge contributor to the greenhouse gas effect. By finding these leads for our Project Partner, we are creating opportunities to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere and providing our Phoenix community with cleaner air.

Initiatives like this are necessary to help keep lower-income families healthy and fed, which is only further exemplified by the current COVID-19 pandemic. Many families are having a hard time securing fresh food, so we are extremely proud to say that we are helping to get more food in more families’ fridges.

Through this project, our team now has quality experience in real-world business aspects including creating vibrant marketing materials, research, and business communication.

Written by Kara Pietrowski & Alyssa Knowles
Project Lead: Kara Pietrowski
Project Team: Alyssa Knowles | Erica Kriner | Jennifer Blaker