Black Church Food Security Network Team Is Growing

Pictured: Standing outside of the truck, new Black Church Food Security Network team member, Namita Money with their partner, Edith, in the driver's seat.

Our sister organization, The Black Church Food Security Network (BCFSN), was founded in 2015 in the midst of the Baltimore Uprising and following five successful years of Pleasant Hope Baptist Church growing food in its vegetable garden. Seeing the opportunity to systematize and scale deep within the ecosystem of the Black Church community, Pastor Brown co-created a network designed to leverage the assets of Black churches in order to help the African American community to have greater control over where its food comes from. As the children of Orita's Cross Freedom School sing, "Whoever controls the food controls the people!" We recognize that until we have greater control over our food sources, we'll continue to struggle with our communal health while suffering from the effects of food apartheid.

In an effort to respond to the challenges that families faced because of the coronavirus pandemic and to help strengthen support for Black Farmers, BCFSN launched the Black Church Supported Agriculture Program (BCSA). Through this program, BCFSN helps churches to buy in bulk from Black farmers and delivers the produce to congregations throughout the Mid Atlantic.

Leading the charge for the BCSA program is new team member, Namita Money, (pronouns they/them). Namita coordinates purchasing with congregations and works with Black farmers in creating a values-based food supply chain up and down I-95.

Pleasant Hope Baptist Church, like many other churches has long participated in food charity endeavors over its 88 years, however, now we're swimming further upstream; not just feeding those that are hungry, but asking why are we hungry in the first place. This justice take on food ministry is not just helping those that are in need, but utilizing an asset-based community development model, we are organizing our power to be the answers to our prayers.

If you would like to organize with and support the work of the Black Church Food Security Network, click here to follow them on Facebook and Twitter/IG at @BlackChurchFSN