The last year has changed us. How could it not?
There are so many lessons from the pandemic: the inequities dramatically exposed and expanded, the ways it was viscerally clear how our health is intimately linked, both with each other’s health, and with the ecosystems we live in. The question is, what will we do with these lessons? As Sonya Renee Taylor reminds us: We are being given the opportunity to stitch a new garment. One that fits all humanity and nature. Will we take the time to understand these lessons so we can pivot and meet the moment?
Kayla Abe shares her story, alongside facilitator, Sadie Scheffer, in February of 2020 at RFRS’ last in-person event before the pandemic.
I had an epiphany: this is an opportunity. We get to reimagine who we are, and how we do what we do.
The last year also changed Real Food Real Stories. Like everyone else, we had to make some quick adjustments to move our events to a digital platform. And, we welcomed several new team members. On a deeper level, the context of the pandemic invited us to reflect on the lasting impact of our work and our role in food and culture ecosystems.
With so many in our community struggling, I kept thinking to myself, there must be more we can do.
One day last spring, I was out on a hike –– the hills still green from the rains, the sky brilliantly blue as we were entering early summer. I had an epiphany: this is an opportunity. We get to reimagine who we are, and how we do what we do.
Jovida hikes in the Marin foothills with their beloved dog, Elmo.
So, our team set out to ask ourselves the big questions: Why do we do what we do? What is our vision for long-term change, and what is our right role in making that change? As a trusted mentor once asked me: are we prepared to transform ourselves, in service of the transformation we seek in the world?
Our team set out to ask ourselves the big questions: Why do we do what we do? What is our vision for long-term change, and what is our right role in making that change?
Some of the thoughts that bubbled up include:
Our mission and impact: Since 2018, our mission has been: To humanize the food system for a more connected, regenerative and just tomorrow. Our experience of what RFRS has to offer is both broader and more focused than this statement conveys. We’ve been zeroing in on what the core elements of our purpose are, what the impact we want to create really is, and how we might deepen alignment between our mission, programs and impact. How, specifically, does sharing stories help us get to a more “connected, regenerative, and just tomorrow?” How do we accurately convey to others what RFRS offers?
Our core stakeholders: Our organizational design between 2018-2020 centered the idea of reaching “curious eaters,” which implicitly emphasizes the role of consumers in creating change. Yet, RFRS grew from the desire to center and support the people creating human-scale food-webs. So is curious eater the right articulation of our core stakeholders? Are consumers really the driver of the change we seek? What if, instead, we commit to richer, deeper, and more accountable work and relationships with food changemakers; what might that mean for how we collaborate, co-create, and co-conspire?
Our commitment to racial justice: Recognizing that US food systems are rooted in and shaped by a history of land theft, genocide, and slavery, transforming food has to include a commitment to shifting racial power dynamics. If we choose to be more explicit and intentional about this, how does that inform what we do and how we do it? Whose voices and stories are we centering? Who are we inviting to facilitate these stories? And, given that many of our engaged community members are white (as am I), how are we inviting white people to participate in this work of rebalancing racialized power?
These questions are just a taste; we’ve been chewing on many juicy questions together. A few of the insights we’ve surfaced include a clarified focus and centering of our work on culture change, and a grounding of our programmatic strategies in cultural strategies. For example:
Focus on food culture: We’re trying on the idea that food culture is what we’re shaping, rather than humanizing the food system. We understand that culture shapes everything humans create, including systems. We want to grow a food culture that includes practices of belonging and reciprocity, economies of care, and worldviews of plenty; a food culture that is just, pluralistic, and rooted in place.
To shape culture, use culture: Through culture-making (with art, media, stories, food, music, ritual, and more) we can intentionally shape culture. By weaving our story-based work into larger narrative and cultural strategies, we animate a worldview that values our interdependence and mutual thriving. This also means that we are increasingly thinking of RFRS as a media and arts organization, growing from the seeds of our live story gatherings.
Rooting in culture to heal relationships: We must reckon with the ways we live in the shadow of European settler colonialism. This history continues to shape our world today, including our racial identities, norms and behaviors ranging from food choices to supervision practices. We believe food and story can be part of healing and repairing our relationships – with ourselves, our communities, and the land. We are now working to bring this explicitly into our programming.
Click to RSVP to our upcoming Community Roundtable.
We’d like to invite you, our community members, into this work with us at our Community Roundtable…
We are excited about putting these insights into action! And we’d like to invite you, our community members, into this work with us at our Community Roundtable, on Tuesday June 29th, at 5pm PT.
Please join us to vision several generations forward, explore what our visions and the cultural times are calling us to become, and let our questions guide our way.
Together, we'll envision our future and shape how we get there.
I hope to see you there!