Changing the System: Strengthening the Healthy Food Access System
One persistent barrier to community health in high-risk areas is lack of access to healthy food, a social determinant of health priority on every community development and investment framework. From 2017 through 2020, Jump IN launched healthy corner store interventions in the Far Eastside of Indianapolis, a severe food desert. Rather than waiting years hoping for a full-service grocery to arrive, this initiative created access to healthier food within a matter of months. Jump IN’s work much more fully developed during 2020 and 2021. By partnering with the City’s Office of Public Health and Safety, Jump IN funded and completed an intensive community-engagement process. This process led the City-County Council to pass an ordinance in early 2021 establishing the Food Access Advisory Commission (FAC) and creating the city’s Division of Community Nutrition and Food Policy, thus expanding an empowered and sustainable food system leadership infrastructure to partner with the reimagined Indy Food Council, now named the Indianapolis Community Food Access Coalition (ICFAC). Throughout 2021, Jump IN worked to stand up FAC and initiate its collaboration with an expanded ICFAC comprising many community voices, stakeholders, and sectors. The Division and the Coalition enable the Indianapolis food system stakeholder groups – food insecurity response, healthy food access (retail), and food economy (growers and supply chain) – to communicate, problem-solve and ensure that all Indianapolis residents have access to nutritious food that supports optimal health.
In 2024 Indy FAC updated their priorities, and workplans to the following five areas of focus:
- Develop a food equity plan;
- Decrease barriers to participation in federally funded nutrition programs like WIC and SNAP;
- Increase urban farm development;
- Create a centralized Food Hub: in 2022 Jump IN, in partnership with the City of Indianapolis, completed a feasibility study that determined that a centralized food hub would be effective in Indianapolis.
- Decrease Food Waste
As a founding member of Indy FAC and a developer of the model, Jump IN will contribute significant time in 2025 to the following:
- Finalizing funding and developing a multi-year approach to standing-up and sustaining a centralized Food Hub.
- Leveraging partnerships and resources to decrease barriers to participation in nutrition programs.
- Supporting the implementation of a multiprong communication approach that includes targeted and awareness-based strategies to help funders and residents understand the scope of FAC and how it can work with ICFAC to accomplish community needs.
- Examining how and ensuring that the food equity plan drives all of these priorities.
- Design the implementation process for an equitable food fund that will continue to support the food system efforts within Marion County.
These initiatives partnering with other community food organizations have the potential to truly move our city to the next level of improved food capacity and infrastructure as we implement a more coordinated system.
