In the nation’s capital, food insecurity affects roughly 1 in every 7 children.

On Saturday, APHA’s Food and Environment Working group hosted its annual food tour, themed “Centering Community.” Participants saw how neighborhood environments shape access to food and met local leaders working to improve it.

The Food and Environment Working Group is a collaboration between APHA’s Environment and Food and Nutrition Sections. Each year the group organizes food tours at APHA’s Annual Meeting to highlight local food systems. 

This year’s event, co-facilitated by the Longer Tables Fund and the Global Food Institute at George Washington University, spotlighted community-driven efforts to create a more just and sustainable food system.

The tour kicked off at City Blossoms’ Fall Festival, a weekly farmers market that runs from June through November. The market is organized by Dreaming Out Loud, a nonprofit focused on food justice in Washington, D.C.’s Wards 7 and 8.

Together, the two wards are home to about 160,000 residents — but just three grocery stores. In contrast, most other D.C. wards have eight or nine.

At the market, local vendors sell affordable, nutritious foods in a community where access to healthy groceries is often limited.

APHA member Ayishat Yussuf, a senior at Spelman College, said the tour reflected common experiences among Black Americans, who are disproportionately affected by food insecurity and its related health outcomes. Wards 7 and 8 are predominantly Black and Hispanic, with many residents living on low incomes.

For Yussuf, the sense of community was a key takeaway from the tour. “I just love community,” she said. “I feel like food and community go hand in hand.”

Farmers markets like City Blossoms’ Fall Festival are a staple of D.C. food culture, according to Renee Catacalos, the tour’s emcee and director of strategic investments at Freshfarm, a nonprofit dedicated to building a more equitable, sustainable and resilient food system.

D.C. boasts one of the highest numbers of farmers markets per capita in the U.S. The city depends largely on produce grown across the Northeast, and organizations such as Freshfarm help bridge that connection, operating dozens of markets that bring fresh, locally sourced food directly to residents.

APHA member Lauren Ellis, a PhD student at Northeastern University, said the tour made her connect the issue of food insecurity with her research focus on agricultural pesticides.

“I’m here on this food tour thinking about chemicals and how to kind of balance the need for increased food access with pesticides,” Ellis said.

The tour wrapped up at DC Central Kitchen, a local nonprofit that combats hunger and poverty through job training and job creation. 

“Poverty causes hunger, not food,” said Alexander Moore, the organization’s chief development officer.

DC Central Kitchen prepares up to 5,000 nutritious meals each day for shelters, nonprofits and youth programs across the city. The organization also delivers meals to seniors and veterans, stocks school-based food pantries, and supplies healthy groceries in underserved neighborhoods.

APHA member Kimberly Schneider, a public health nurse with the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program at the Wisconsin Department of Health Services, said the tour’s themes resonated with her work. A child’s nutritional status can significantly affect how the body absorbs and eliminates lead, Schneider said.

“I’m very interested to see how this has all come to be to take some of that back and hopefully integrate some of this into our communities,” she said. 

Photos: Alexander Moore; food tour participants. Photos courtesy Sophia Meador.