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About to launch phase two of this project, the collaborating organizations – Bellingham Food Bank, Northwest Agricultural Business Center, and Refugee and Immigrant Services NW – have made great strides to increase food security for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) and refugee, immigrant, and migrant (RIM) populations!
Approved for funding by the North Sound ACH Review Committee last year, the Cultural Alimentos Project focuses on expanding knowledge about food security needs and simultaneously building strategies for longer term investment in food systems that support BIPOC/RIM community members.
North Sound ACH team members visited the Bellingham Food Bank site in May 2024, meeting with Mike Cohen and Stephanie Sisson (Bellingham Food Bank), Steve Bader of Agape Food Bank, Alex Perez (Northwest Agricultural Business Center), and Van Kuno (Refugee & Immigrant Services NW).
Bellingham Food Bank surveyed their clients in 2022, asking about cultural food preferences, ease of locations, and to find out which populations were missing from utilizing their services. This project builds upon those survey results, and led to creating advisory groups composed of community members from the BIPOC communities they intend to serve.
Project leads said they’ve learned the importance of not rushing the process when it comes to building trust within the community. They recently hired a consultant to help them hear and learn from BIPOC communities. As a result, they’ve noticed a rise in the number of people joining the advisory groups, including members from Afghanistan, Ukraine, Pacific Islands, Vietnam, Pakistan, India, and various Latino and indigenous communities.
They’ve recently learned of key transportation barriers, residual fear of federal immigration policies that were never passed or have been rescinded (that threatened to penalize immigrants for accessing benefits), and continued lack of services tailored to BIPOC and RIM communities.
One significant finding was that people from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Pacific Islander communities consistently reported a lack of services tailored to them. Often, they received written information and were then turned away. This issue was a common theme during advisory group meetings with these communities.
Stay tuned for more updates!
CORRECTION: Agape Service Project Food Bank is not a part of the Cultural Alimentos Project. They are a food bank that works closely with Bellingham Food Bank, especially around sourcing culturally relevant foods. They were also not a part of the 2022 Bellingham Food Bank client survey mentioned in the previous version of this post. The writer apologizes for the error.
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We’ll be sharing more Network Dispatches in the coming months, about the projects created by Collaborative Action Network members.
