Gregory Ford II, Executive Committee Secretary

Gregory has been involved with HOPE Collaborative for over 6 years. He first joined the collaborative to gain knowledge around local and sustainable economic development and the built environment. He participated in HOPE Collaborative's Leadership Institute in 2012 and has been informing community members about economic growth and healthy food access. Gregory feels that supporting a local economy, access to healthy foods and programs will create positive built environments and is key to sustaining the health of communities.

Currently, Gregory is the Secretary of HOPE Collaborative's Executive Committee. He attends these meetings where an advisory board meets bi-monthly to give advice and support around collaborative developments. Gregory continues to support the collaborartive's efforts in creating safe, healthy and inviting places to build healthy communities.

HOPE Collaborative is pleased to announce the completion of our food hub feasibility study and the beginning of our search for an Owner/Operator.  After a year of thorough research, analysis, and engagement from wide range of local and national food systems partners, we have found sufficient evidence that a food hub in Oakland offering farm-identified local produce to area institutions and other customers can operate as a financially-sustainable enterprise. Market demand and regional supply are strong, and those likely to become anchor participants are matched in their interest in doing business through a food hub with HOPE's values, and in offering some pricing flexibility for the market to clear. Furthermore, there is room in the financial analysis for fluctuations in pricing, volume and margin.  The study suggests the facility will reach $7.5 million in sales at steady state.

Our next step is to identify an Owner/Operator interested in a long-term commitment to developing and growing a food hub in Oakland, CA. This entity could be a standalone business, a social enterprise arm of HOPE Collaborative, or a joint venture opportunity.  Additionally, the facility could be a standalone facility, or serve as an anchor tenant/business where other local food businesses could co-locate. 

HOPE Collaborative prioritizes a mission-driven approach in the business model including but not limited to building the local economy through building assets in Oakland's low-income communities, local wealth and asset-building, improving health equity and food access, and promoting environmental sustainability.  Due to HOPE's emphasis on local ownership of the food system, successful candidates will be Oakland residents and/or have strong ties to Oakland.

HOPE Collaborative has made a significant investment over the last two years in staffing, program resources, financing, and partners' staffing resources to develop this project and would like to determine the most suitable partners for this new business opportunity.  The RFI process is meant to be streamlined and efficient to make it as easy for potential businesses to communicate their interest and qualifications. 

The feasibility study is not yet available for public distribution, but a copy of the full report will be provided to qualified respondents.  

Click here to view the RFI. 

HOPE is seeking to assemble an Advisory Group to work with the food hub core team during our business planning phase.  We seek Advisory Group members who represent the following areas of expertise in food business development: legal, financial, facilities and real estate, financing, and anchor buyers and growers for the hub.  

Advisory group members will be expected to participate in a total of two meetings--a kick-off meeting to develop the business planning workplan and project scope and a business plan feedback meeting to review the complete pro forma and business strategy.  There will be approximately 5-10 hours of work and discussion in between these two meetings.  

Healing circles at the 2013 America Healing Conference � 2013 W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

"When you look at the food system with a race lens, what do you see wrong and how are you addressing the problems?  What are insights you can share about the process of advancing this complex work?  What are important elements practitioners need to anticipate and invest adequate time and resources in to do this work effectively?"  Kolu Zigbi, Program Director at Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, posed these questions at a panel entitled "Good Food for All: Embracing a Food Continuum for Equity" at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's America Healing Convening, held from April 22-25, 2013 in Asheville, NC.  Sabrina Wu, Project Director of HOPE Collaborative, participated on this panel focused on food justice and racial equity, along with Aletha Maybank, Assistant Commissioner of the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, and Malik Yakini, Founder and Executive Director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network. 

Panelists discussed the ways food injustices in local communities, such as large disparities in diet-related disease and lack of access to healthy foods in low-income communities of color, are rooted in structural inequities, specifically institutionalized racism.  They also shared effective strategies from the ground, focusing on bringing community voice to policy tables, building community-driven and community-serving food enterprise, curbing corporate influence and targeting of communities of color, community access to land, and community-based education, as ways for people to reclaim and reshape the food system. 

Read more about this and the other sessions on structural change here. 

View more pictures from our Earth Day event here.

April 20, 2013 marked the nationwide Earth Day Celebration, where people, businesses, and community organizations all band together to celebrate the earth. Community greening and clean-up events took place all over the Bay Area.

By A'leah Bashir-Bagee 

The City of Oakland hosted a clean-up event at DeFremery Park located in West Oakland at 18^th and Adeline. Starting bright and early, 30 to 40 community members arrived ready to get dirty. I was assigned to a group who worked on making the DeFremery Park sign prettier. For about thirty minutes, the group removed weeds and old grass, then raked the dirt smooth while removing excess debris around the sign. My favorite part of course was planting the flowers. We had lots of perennials and other garden flowers to plant. Friday following the event, I made my way to dance class near the park and got to see what I and others had planted. It really makes a difference to the community to add some spark or life next to a concrete sign. Now every time I walk by, I can see what I did on Earth Day 2013.

By Tearsey Em and Sandra Muniz

In East Oakland, Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) hosted a 'Clean Up, Green Up' Action Day at Tassafaronga Recreation Center to clean up East Oakland neighborhoods and plant trees and native plants.  The event that took place was very interesting and opened my eyes. It was surprising to see such a beautiful recreation center/park in the neighborhood. It was also astounding to see the range of ages that were there for the event and we found it a refreshing sight to see. The ambitious energy that everyone had inside them was almost like there was a whole army of fighters that fought with a sense of justice.  We worked with a group who decided to walk to San Leandro to grow poppies. The seeds we were given were really cool because we didn't need tools to plant them. We just had to water the soil and pick a spot on the ground to throw the seeds in. With little effort, we can make a huge difference. Having one day where we take the time to actually appreciate the Earth is something that everyone can do.

On April 25, 2013, The California Endowment (TCE) convened community leaders from around the state in Los Angeles to address the health disparities of boys and young men of color. This conference was a jumping off point to integrate foundation's BMOC work in Oakland, Long Beach, Fresno, and Los Angeles with TCE's multi-year place based initiative amply named Build Healthy Communities (BHC) across 14 communities in California.  

The health of Boys and Young Men of Color is a discouraging picture. According to "Healthy Communities Matter: The Importance of Place to the Health of Boys of Color" (2010), African American and Latino males are more likely to have a low birth rate and have higher odds of several chronic health conditions that require repeated, consistent care for treatment: childhood asthma requiring hospitalization, childhood obesity, and contracting HIV/AIDS.  In a report by California Health Interview Survey, "CHIS 2007 Adult Public Use File"(Los Angeles: UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, 2009), over 1 in 5 young men of color between 15 and 19 years old do not have a usual source of healthcare.

HOPE Collaborative houses the staff person supporting East Oakland building Healthy Communities' (EOBHC) Youth Development and Organizing Group (YDOG).  YDOG includes youth serving organizations and works to strengthen leadership development of East Oakland's youth. Building on the momentum of the convening in Los Angeles, HOPE will be working within EOBHC to support the connections of local BMOC work to aggregate multiple issues such as health, employment, financial sustainability, youth development, juvenile justice, neighborhood safety and education to improve the health equity of boys and young men of color in Oakland.