Faith in Food: Partnering with Congregations to Sustain and Strengthen Communities through Farmers Markets

      Posted On: August 26, 2016

Photo credit: Decatur Farmers Market

Photo credit: Decatur Farmers Market

Over the past year, The Food Trust and Partners for Sacred Places have worked to strengthen connections between farmers markets and the faith communities that exist around them. This webinar will discuss why and how these partnerships are beneficial, best practices around collaboration, challenges and successes, as well as identifying first steps that farmers market operators and faith communities can take to build these partnerships.

Webinar Slideshow (PDF)

Sacred Places at Risk Report (PDF)

The Food Trust’s End-of-Year Farmers Market Customer Survey (PDF)

Eat Healthy, Give Healthy! Fresh Produce Food Drive Guidebook (PDF)

 

PRESENTERS:

Nicky Uy

Nicky Uy is a Senior Associate at The Food Trust and has over 10 years experience working to strengthen food access initiatives around farmers markets and other local food retailing. She has opened over 25 farmers markets in areas of high need and works with community partners, government agencies, healthcare institutions and food producers on strategies and initiatives that create opportunities for local farmers to connect with communities. Nicky serves on Philadelphia’s Food Policy Advisory Council and is a board member of the Farmers Market Coalition. She earned her Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania and prior to working at The Food Trust, worked in the logistics and transportation field. She loves markets, gardening traveling, and Philadelphia.

Joshua Castano

Joshua Castaño is a Senior Program Manager at Partners for Sacred Places, and brings to Partners his professional experience as a historic preservation specialist in one of the nation’s most densely and diversely populated communities of Paterson, NJ. There, he helped build partnerships between historic congregations and public institutions, with a particular focus on heritage tourism initiatives that benefited many of the dynamic congregations successfully serving the city’s economically challenged neighborhoods. Joshua also developed a variety of heritage-based public education programs and participated, through research and legislative assistance, in the local landmark designation of historic congregations in addition to formal advocacy on behalf of threatened historic sites. At Partners, he is involved in training, consulting, and programming with congregations and faith communities across the nation. Joshua earned a BA in Art History from Oberlin College.