“The Change I Want to See pt. 1”
The reason why I chose these photos and put them together is because I want to show what I see most of the time in my city compared to what I think I should see more often than not, which is farms, healthy habits, and people who care and work on the land. I want to see a world where there are more farms than fast food, where’s there’s more healthy than unhealthy.
“The Change I Want to See pt. II”
The reason why I chose these photos and put them together is because I want to show what I see most of the time in my city compared to what I think I should see more often than not, which is farms, healthy habits, and people who care and work on the land. I want to see a world where there are more farms than fast food, where’s there’s more healthy than unhealthy.
“School food pt. I”
I feel like public schools don’t have access to good food, even though we’re supposed to, that’s the policy, but it’s not… Everything’s not what it seems it should be, because those strawberries were frozen. They weren’t real. They were frozen, you could tell, and the taco meat was… That doesn’t even look appetizing, and I feel like we deserve better, even though we go to a public school. Well, everyone that we know goes to a public school, and this is what JCPS kids are getting fed. This is what the guidelines are to a serving of fruit. That’s not even fruit at this point. The strawberries don’t look good. They’re usually very soggy and very old. The food we get isn’t nourishing or filing. I would just force myself to eat, because I need to eat something.
“School food pt. II”
I feel like when people think of farmers and stuff like that, they think of… You know how they work on the field and stuff? But that’s not what the Food Literacy Project does. We also learn about food, and nutrition, and things like that, and over the fall, we learned about how this isn’t proper nutrition. We watched documentaries, and we learned a lot. It really educated us on what we actually deserve, and this isn’t it. And I feel like not everyone at JCPS can speak, because first of all, no one feels like they have a voice. I know before this, I wasn’t… Who am I going to tell? But now, I’m talking about it. I feel like everyone needs to see it, just because not everyone knows what we have to eat, and then they wonder, why are our test grades so bad, and why is this, and why are kids having low energy? Well, this is why. But for some kids when they come to school, this is all that they get to eat. They don’t eat at home. They come to school because they… School has meals. It’s their only choice.
“Drink choices”
I feel like the Food Literacy Project wants to educate people more than anything. Even more than farming and stuff. There’s a movement where we want people to be educated, because then they’ll know where their food comes from and stuff like that. I feel like not a lot of people are educated. People in my community… They mostly sell drinks and stuff in our cafeteria, and they have one thing of water, and the rest is soda. Not a lot of people in our community know about the effects of things that are going into our body. And those other soft drinks that they sell us are very large and stuff, and those water bottles that they also sell are very, very small. And much more expensive than the others. We learned about how they sell snacks at school and stuff like that to have our loyalty. We learned about that over the fall, how… They don’t sell it for money, but they sell it for us to see it, and we’re loyal to that brand. If you see Doritos at school, and you buy them, because you’re hungry, because you’re not going to eat the school food, then you’re loyal to that brand. So, we also learned about that, which was from the Food Literacy Project.
“This is My Community”
YCAP impacts my community because we picked up all this trash and made it a better area. Maybe our council person, I know she leads trash pickup, but just to put it out there more that you can’t just litter everywhere and stuff like that. When we pick up trash, we had to throw it away at the Save-A-Lot dumpster. So they weren’t really trash cans. Maybe if people see this picture, they’ll see that not everyone, we don’t have to normalize it, and it doesn’t have to be okay. Some people want their community not to look like that, and if they see us out there, working on it and stuff like that, then maybe they’ll think differently about the next time they want to litter or something. Just clean, just the fact that you can see like the side of the grass is filled with trash, and no one wants to look at that. I don’t know anyone who wants their community to look like that. I just thought we could do this all the time, and the trash just keeps coming back. So I just thought it would be an example of, show people that this isn’t okay, and that people actually want to clean it up. So maybe people will see how we like impact that community, because we do things for our community. Plus during this time, this pandemic, you never know, random people going out, picking up stuff, and for all we can know, like there could be coronavirus on it or something like that. We can get sick from picking up this trash and germs and stuff. So I feel like people just should, if they see a trash can, they should just throw it away. If they don’t see a trash can at that moment, then they should wait, hold their trash until they find a trash can. And the mayor can put more trash cans out. That could be something that we could request. Getting more trash cans around the community.
“Cheated”
Watermelon: This was the inside of a Taco Bell by St. Matthews it was the best one I had ever seen. The Taco Bell I go to, there’s trash outside, the trash inside, the trash cans filling up. You can tell that there’s not money put into the Taco Bell in my neighborhood. IYCAP has made me think more closely and into depth about how this isn’t okay. Why is it so nice out here, and why can’t we have the same things? I don’t know. I guess there’s just more money out in St. Matthews. We all know how pretty it is, and there’s all these stores around there. There’s a Whole Foods. I’ve never even been to a Whole Foods. Yeah. There’s not a lot of black people, so…
Chico: Because basically white privilege.
Watermelon: I mean, it just angers me so much because I went in there, and I was like, “Wow. It’s like so beautiful here.” Why can’t I say that in my own neighborhood? Why can’t my neighborhood be beautiful too. Before I would just be like, “Oh, it’s St. Matthew’s.” Of course everything out here is nice. Over the weeks we’ve talked about it, and you realize it’s stupid, and that it’s racially wrong. It’s just the money they put into like white everything is just wrong. They’ve opened my eyes, and I have a better perspective. I just thought people should know how YCAP has opened my eyes, and how it impacts me too, because it made me feel some type of way. It made me feel like, imagine a little kid who’s like, “Why is everything so nice out here? Why’s my community so bad, not nice, like this.” I don’t want anyone to feel differently because, “Oh, there’s a lot of white people out here. We shouldn’t have to think that. We shouldn’t have to. I think that everyone could use an eye opener, just like I got, and maybe they’ll see, they’ll start realizing these things too. And then, we could all advocate for change and more money in predominantly black neighborhoods. We could really do something about it instead of just getting angry and then getting over it, because I don’t want to get over it. I want people to feel how I feel, to see what I see. Well, firstly, I’d start with maybe comparing different things in each neighborhood and show them that like, “Oh, this was predominantly white. This was predominantly black.” Just to show that it really is a thing. Just so it opened people’s eyes about, go back to history and just show people how much stuff hasn’t changed.
Chico: I feel like they just stereotype everybody in one group. I feel like they just see everybody as the same in the neighborhood, so basically saying everybody’s not the same way. Everybody has different intentions. Everybody’s not going to steal. Everybody’s not going to ruin the store or whatever you’re going to go into. Everybody’s not going to damage the property. I know there might be some people out there, but not everybody’s going to do that.
“Produce stand”
We were driving down Dixie Highway, and we happened to see this stand on the side of the road. It was a guy. He had so much other stuff. So we stopped because I wanted some cucumbers, and some tomatoes, and cantaloupe. He was talking to me, and I was telling him about the farm. He asked where it was located and I was telling him where it was and he said, “Okay, okay.” He told me about his… He said he got his own farm. That’s how he makes this produce. He said it was in his backyard or something. And so we just had a conversation about produce and stuff. Before this whole coronavirus broke out, we used to show at a fresh market and we’d give it to people. He made it affordable on purpose. He told me he made it affordable on purpose because he would like people to experience just like… He told me that. Do you see him? He made it affordable to anybody to help.
“Everyday Injustice”
The reason I chose this picture to write about is because I want to show what it’s like looking for fresh fruits and vegetables in a grocery store located in a neighborhood like mine. They still sell us rotten and beat up vegetables just to get home and be uneatable. This is unfair to the hardworking people who spend their money to feed their family and barely have the resources to do so. A policy should be put in place to prevent this not just for richer/ less “urban” people but everyone. This represents injustice in a lot of ways. For one, food injustice for people like me and my family who go to the grocery store to buy fresh fruits and vegetables that we can actually eat and can’t find. That’s one injustice. Another one is the people who didn’t even notice, bought the fruit and vegetable, went home and couldn’t eat it because it was rotten when they got home. It’s injustice for the kids who didn’t ask for this, who still have to eat tonight but can’t. So, yeah. Injustice in a whole lot of ways. I just wanted people to see that it’s not just talk. It’s not just in our head. It’s not just us picking a fight. It’s real life. It really happens every single day. And even if you’re not directly affected by it, it should still be an issue for you that there are kids that can’t eat sometimes, or that parents that can’t afford stuff like this or parents that can afford stuff like this, but don’t get the right products or right produce because of stuff like this.
“Fresh Harvest”
While working as a part of YCAP I have learned a lot. I have been more excited to try new things and learn new recipes with the fresh food that we harvest. I have seen the process of planting and harvesting different vegetables. I have also learned about food insecurity and have thought about different ways to help decrease food insecurity in Louisville.
