Our 2021 grants went to the following Change-makers PROMOTING CLIMATE-FRIENDLY FOODS.

A Table in the Wilderness is a plant-powered, grassroots organization that has provided spiritual and physical food to low-income communities in Oklahoma since 2017. Founded by Laurel and Lamar Mauldin, their interactive programs educate and feed more than 1,000 individuals and families in the Oklahoma City metro area on the physical, spiritual and environmental benefits of a plant-based lifestyle. Programs are tailored to improve our community by educating on health and wellness, animal welfare, spirituality; and increasing the demand for healthy climate-friendly foods in food desert neighborhoods.

Support from Eat the Change Impact will help A Table in the Wilderness continue its unique approach to assisting the community through their Eat Better Van. The Eat Better Van spreads kindness, fosters education, and gives away food to encourage plant-based living to communities in health crises.

Founded in 2019 by Truphena Choti, AfriThrive is a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating economic opportunities for underserved African immigrant communities through building a sustainable and culturally appropriate local food system in the Greater Washington, DC area. The organization runs a one-acre farm and supports community gardens in Montgomery County. Their community gardening program brings together a network of immigrant families to cultivate culturally appropriate varieties of African indigenous vegetables on their farm. Through significant community support, it has continued to expand to meet the increased needs of the community.

Funding from Eat the Change Impact will support AfriThrive’s operations and increase their capacity to grow and distribute more culturally appropriate, healthy produce. 

Since 1979, Animal Protection New Mexico’s mission has been to advocate for the humane treatment of all animals by effecting systemic change. The specific goal of the Promoting Plant-Based Eating program is to impact the food system by making plant-based foods more appealing and accessible to all New Mexicans. 

The Eat the Change Impact grant will be used to continue and expand the plant-based food assistance program, providing local, plant-based foods to communities experiencing food insecurity. Funding will provide food bags for 900 families in rural New Mexico, including the Ramah Navajo Community and Zia Pueblo.

The Black Veg Society's, formerly known as Black Vegetarian Society of Maryland (BVSMD), mission is to educate the public, particularly African American and Latinx communities, on the benefits of a plant-based diet. Led by Naijha Wright-Brown, the organization focuses on building community around healthy, accessible, and sustainable food while making compassionate lifestyle choices. BVSMD develops relationships and collaborates with local businesses, non-profit organizations, schools, and churches that share in the mission of promoting dietary, ethical, or environmental veganism.

The Eat the Change Impact grant will be used to support a variety of BVSMD’s projects and programs, including Maryland Restaurant Week, virtual campaigns, cooking demos and workshops.

The Center for World Indigenous Studies (CWIS) is an indigenous-directed research and education organization of activist scholars working to support the rights and resources of indigenous peoples. Since its founding in 1979, CWIS has worked with tribal communities on every continent to preserve native knowledge records, develop laws in favor of indigenous rights, support traditional foods and medicines and educate students and interns about indigenous societies.

Funding from Eat the Change Impact will support the development of a documentary titled ‘Capomo: our ancestral super food and medicine’. Capomo is a nut from the Breadnut tree – an ancient traditional food and medicine source for indigenous peoples of Mexico. Adversely affected by climate change and the effects of unbridled development on food subsistence patterns, Capomo is emblematic of the essential role of plant foods and medicines in the health and well-being of indigenous peoples worldwide. The movie is being filmed at the request of, and in close cooperation with, indigenous communities on the rural west coast of Mexico.

Founded in Montgomery County, Maryland, the Charles Koiner Conservancy for Urban Farming (CKC) is a nonprofit land trust dedicated to protecting and managing urban farms that serve the needs of their community and that inspire the next generation of sustainable food innovators. Established in 2018, the organization emerged out of a need to preserve a historic and iconic urban farm in downtown Silver Spring, Maryland – Koiner Farm – which was operated by lifelong Montgomery County farmer, Charles Koiner.

CKC empowers the next generation of food innovators, providing internships and hands-on seasonal field trips for local students at the neighborhood farm. In addition, CKC provides volunteerships and workshops for neighbors, a weekly on-farm market, and community-building programming including monthly concerts, yoga, and popups through partnerships with local businesses and neighborhood associations. In their own words: “CKC is grateful to be a part of the Eat the Change Impact community of changemakers working around the county to connect people to their land, the food they eat and to each other.”

The Climate Collaborative works to catalyze bold climate action among natural products companies to put our world on a path to solving the climate crisis and creating a healthier, more just and equitable world. Launched in 2017, the organization brings manufacturers, retailers, brokers, distributors and suppliers together to build existing climate solutions to scale and to find innovative, new ways to help reverse climate change.

Support from Eat the Change Impact will help the Climate Collaborative implement collaborative industry initiatives to reduce food waste through programming and resources for companies across the food system. 

Located in LeDroit Park in Washington DC, Common Good City Farm (CGCF) is a place where community members can source fresh food, see sustainable urban agriculture in action, and gain exposure to concepts and skills to lead healthy lives. The organization’s mission is to create a vibrant, informed, and well-nourished community through urban farming. CGCF actively engages with all members of our diverse community and creates opportunities for connections on its farm, while emphasizing intensive vegetable production and modeling best practices in sustainable urban agriculture.

The Eat the Change Impact grant will be used to support farm operations and the roll-out of two new CGCF programs: The Certificate Program in Regenerative Urban Agriculture and the Pay-What-You-Can Farm Market. 

Crossroads Community Food Network is building a healthier, more inclusive food system in the Takoma/Langley Crossroads, a primarily immigrant, low-income community outside Washington, DC. At the heart of this network of food growers, makers, and consumers is Crossroads Farmers Market, where their innovative SNAP matching program makes it easier to bring home more healthy food, and at the same time supports local farmers. Crossroads also provides microenterprise training and a community kitchen for food entrepreneurs.

Eat the Change Impact’s Changemaker grant is supporting Crossroads’ Healthy Eating Program, which brings culturally responsive, farm-to-fork programming to local schools with high Free and Reduced-price Meals (FARMS) participation. By connecting and empowering those who grow, make, and eat healthy food, Crossroads is helping an underserved community attain food equity and self-sufficiency.

DC Greens is a nonprofit organization working to advance food justice and health equity in the nation's capital. In Spring 2022, the organization will open The Well at Oxon Run, a new urban farm and transformative wellness space in DC's Ward 8 neighborhood. In addition to providing access to fresh fruits and vegetables, the space will also be home to an outdoor youth classroom, features of local art, and intergenerational storytelling and community gathering. This space is intended to reconnect the community and redefine their relationship with the land. 

In their own words: “Eat the Change Impact's grant to support building The Well will help bring this vision to life at a time when investments in agriculture, health, and wellness are needed more than ever.”

Life and Health Network is a national organization with the goal to help individuals become healthier through education that emphasizes lifestyle medicine and globally sustainable practices. Their Diabetes Undone® program uses lifestyle medicine to reverse the effects of Type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes through a low fat, plant-based, whole foods diet paired with a fitness regimen to fight disease. 

Funding from Eat the Change will help subsidize the Diabetes Undone® program for low-income communities in Southern California and the Seminole Nation Native American population in Oklahoma. These are historically underserved communities which lack equitable access to health education and a whole food, plant-based diet.

Eat REAL empowers food service leaders to increase access to high quality real food options in K-12 schools. Their Eat REAL Certification is a standards-based evaluation and change management program that encourages school districts to increase plant-based options on menus, increase local procurement of seasonal ingredients, implement farm to school programming, practice responsible waste management and introduce climate-friendly food education in the cafeteria. The program teaches kids to love real food, and how their choices have a significant impact on healing our planet.

Funding from Eat the Change Impact will support expansion of the Eat REAL Certification into the next cohort of schools for the 2021-2022 school year.

The Educated Choices Program educates students about the impact of food choices on human health and the environment. By providing factual, mainstream information and promoting respectful dialogue, participants are encouraged to think critically about their food choices.

Since its founding in 2016, ECP has reached nearly 2 million students to date and, through their global expansion project that is currently underway, anticipates reaching over 500,000 students in the 2021-22 school year alone. They also anticipate a continued result of approximately 52% of participants making dietary changes that are healthy for them and for the planet!

Encompass’ mission is to increase effectiveness in the farmed animal protection movement by fostering greater racial diversity, equity, and inclusion while empowering Black, Indigenous, and other advocates of the global majority. Founded in 2017 by Aryenish Birdie, the organization supports leaders and advocates in the farmed animal protection movement on their journeys to understand how racial equity impacts our collective mission to bring about a plant-based world. 

Each year, through consulting, caucus, events, trainings, speaking engagements, and earned media, Encompass serves hundreds of animal and plant-based advocates across the nation. Funding from Eat the Change Impact will support these advocacy initiatives and general operations. 

Fleet Farming’s mission is to educate all generations on how to grow their own food! By hosting free community events, this bike-pedaled urban agriculture program of IDEAS For Us converts underutilized land into micro-farms and shares the produce with landowners and volunteers for free. The excess produce is then sold to vendors, which stimulates the local economy and creates livable wages for the next generation of farmers. For people outside of the biking range, the Fleet team now provides a garden installation service called Edible Landscapes, helping to empower people to grow their own food at their home or business.

Food Shift, a project of Earth Island Institute, develops practical solutions to reduce food waste, nourish communities, and provide jobs. Their holistic framework, Sustainable Eats Education and Nourishment (SEEN) examines food and climate justice by reimagining the definition of Earth-friendly food as foods that may often be overlooked. 

Support from Eat the Change Impact will help Food Shift address food insecurity and joblessness in the San Francisco Bay Area through their catering program and job training program, which are designed for those overcoming employment discrimination including homelessness, unemployment, disability, domestic violence, addiction and incarceration. Culinary apprentices learn how to prepare climate-friendly, plant-forward meals from recovered food, and then these meals are distributed to food insecure communities.

Green Bronx Machine builds healthy, equitable, and resilient communities through inspired education, local food systems, and 21st Century workforce development. Dedicated to cultivating minds and harvesting hope, their school-based model using urban agriculture aligned to key school performance indicators grows healthy students and healthy schools to transform communities that are fragmented and marginalized into neighborhoods that are inclusive and thriving.

In partnership with Eat the Change, Green Bronx Machine is bringing plant-forward and planet-friendly eating through classroom curriculum to five of the most food-challenged schools in a low-income congressional district in America. In their own words: “Together, we will be the change, meet the change, and eat the change to transform educational performance and behavioral outcomes for this and future generations.”

Too many young people in New Orleans go hungry or do not have access to fresh foods. Grow Dat Youth Farm exists at the nexus of these needs. The organization is uniquely situated to provide opportunities to develop leadership skills; initiate change in communities alongside a diverse group of peers, staff, and community partners; and increase fresh food access for local residents.

Grow Dat Youth Farm is an education nonprofit which cultivates the leadership potential of New Orleans area young adults through tiered leadership programming in the context of organic urban agriculture. Grow Dat’s mission is to nurture a diverse group of young leaders through the meaningful work of growing food.

Since 2010, Grow Dat has grown from a garden plot to a 7-acre farm with 3 acres of cultivated fields. Students and volunteers have harvested 200,000 pounds of food, donated 60,000 pounds to individuals and charitable organizations, and educated thousands of additional youths through field trips. Each year, Grow Dat hires 70+ young adults to participate in one of four leadership programs. Youth participants are paid above minimum wage and have opportunities to earn bonuses.

Founded in 2011 by Tony Hillery, Harlem Grown inspires youth to lead healthy and ambitious lives through hands-on education in urban farming, sustainability, and nutrition. Support from Eat the Change Impact will be used to directly address symptoms of health and economic inequality facing youth in Central Harlem. Funding will help to sustain efforts for Harlem Grown to serve 3,500 youth and family members each year by expanding access to fresh, healthy food and building a sustainable BIPOC-centered community. 

This Fall, Harlem Grown is re-launching their in-person garden and school lessons across 5 partner schools, and will launch their mobile teaching kitchen, providing wellness workshops and cooking demonstrations throughout Harlem. They will also distribute year-round, free-of-charge produce via their community fridge and farm stands.

Established in 2008, the Hawaii Institute of Pacific Agriculture (HIP Ag) teaches regenerative agricultural education programs, growing future farmers and feeding their community in Hawaii. The organization strives to grow and maintain diversity in many native plants, including Hawaiian "canoe crops." Part of this endeavor involves educating and empowering the local community around the importance of growing Hawaii's food sovereignty through planting more local sustenance crops that thrive on the islands, including taro, breadfruit and cassava. HIP Ag also manages a coastal lands stewardship contract at nearby 'Akoakoa conservation land that involves maintaining native plant species to support the local bee habitat.

Funds from Eat the Change Impact will help HIP Ag maintain their youth educational programs, plant more local food & plant medicine crops, and expand their Farm to School program.

Hazon is an environmental organization calling for climate action in Jewish communities across the nation. Eat the Change Impact will support Hazon’s Jewish Youth Climate Movement (JYCM) program – a national youth-led movement dedicated to mitigating climate change by empowering young leaders, mobilizing communities and taking action. 

The Changemaker grant will be devoted to developing trainings and programs for their Fall Shmita Campaign. Shmita, occurring every seven years, is the year-long biblical commitment to land rest and related justice. A major focus of the Shmita Campaign will be to educate and advocate for a more sustainable food system that will create a healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable world for all. 

Founded in 2013, Keep Growing Detroit works to cultivate a food sovereign city where Detroiters have power over the food choices in their community. Keep Growing Detroit operates a 1.5-acre urban farm where they share sustainable agriculture practices and supports nearly 2,000 urban gardens and farms in the city. Gardeners who join their programs receive seeds, transplants grown at their farm, gardening supplies and very low-barrier opportunities to sell the fruits and vegetables they grow at local market outlets.

Support from Eat the Change Impact will be used to host 30 educational events, engaging 3,390 Detroiters in climate friendly food and growing practices that celebrate the many rich cultural backgrounds in Detroit.

The Los Angeles Food Policy Council works to make Southern California a Good Food region for everyone—where food is healthy, affordable, fair and sustainable. From farm to fork and beyond, the organization cultivates a diverse network of changemakers across our food system. Through policy development and cooperative relationships, they aim to reduce hunger, foster environmental stewardship, improve public health and community equity.

The Eat the Change Impact grant will be used to support Community Chefs LA, a community-led, made, and inspired series that features Angelenos sharing their food stories and plant-based recipes. They are continuing this work by further engaging communities in cooking climate-friendly foods to improve personal and neighborhood health.

Malama Kaua`i is a community-based nonprofit organization that focuses on increasing local food production and access on Kaua‘i island, the most remote island in Hawai’i. As an island that imports 90% of its food and relies heavily on tourism, the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on farmers and families has been drastic. 

Mālama Kaua‘i has responded with a variety of programs to serve both farmers and their community, including their SNAP/EBT CSA program, which offers healthy, local food delivered across the island. The organization targets low-income housing complexes and underserved communities to receive services, ensuring that everyone has access to fresh, locally produced food.

Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) is a national nonprofit leveraging the power of the private sector to transform the food landscape in pursuit of health equity. PHA was founded in 2010 in partnership with Former First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move! Effort.

The Eat the Change Impact grant will be used to launch PHA's Good Food for All Program in the City of New Orleans. The program provides fresh fruits and vegetables over 12 weeks to families in-need and is centered on promoting plant-based diets and creating sustainable, long-term access to affordable produce.

Founded in 2015, PlantPure Communities (PPC) works to empower individuals in creating healthier, kinder, and more sustainable communities. PPC leverages scientific knowledge and a global grassroots Pod Network to drive a broad population shift towards a plant-based diet to drastically improve human health, reduce healthcare costs, and mitigate climate change. The Pod Network includes 250,000+ people in 31 countries participating in local community groups, or “Pods”.

Support from Eat the Change Impact will enable PPC to amplify the plant-based movement in more communities by equipping leaders with knowledge, resources, and motivation to become local changemakers for human and planetary health.

One of the most exciting aspects about climate-friendly eating is that it is good for both the health of the planet and the people that inhabit it. The Plantrician Project understands this connection well in its work to educate, equip, and empower healthcare practitioners with knowledge about the benefits of whole-food, plant-based nutrition for the regeneration of human health, healthcare, and the food ecosystem.

Founded in 2013, this national organization envisions a world where all physicians, healthcare providers, and health influencers embrace the dietary paradigm shift to a plant-based diet in order to help prevent, suspend, and even reverse much of the diet-related chronic disease plaguing the nation and world. Some key initiatives include: The International Plant-Based Nutrition Healthcare Conference, the International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention/Disease Reversal Digest, PlantbasedDocs.com, a series of quick-start guides, Culinary Rx, and the Regenerative Health Institute.

RootDown LA empowers youth to become leaders through healthy food ventures in South Los Angeles neighborhoods. For over a decade, their efforts have supported the development of a healthier local food economy by stimulating consumer demand for healthy foods, developing community growing spaces, and facilitating entrepreneurial projects that support a networked distribution of food. 

Through their programming, RootDown LA encourages kids and adults to eat more plant-forward by showing quick cooking techniques and growing produce in their community garden. With this grant, RootDown youth will continue to acquire knowledge on healthy foods, increase self-confidence and change eating preferences for both kids and adults.

Sowing Seeds of Change has a mission to empower transitioning foster youth and young adults with disabilities to actively engage in a local food system that encourages healthy living, nurtures the environment, and grows a sustainable community through vocational training, youth entrepreneurship, and leadership opportunities. 

Funding from Eat the Change Impact will be used to help create a No Cost-Open Farmers Market program that will provide access to food to hundreds of individuals in the West Long Beach community. The program will create a triad of good, by diverting food from landfills, creating jobs for participants and engaging the recipients of the food program in activities and workshops that will ultimately lead to a greater understanding and greater control over their food system.

SUPRSEED is committed to providing vegan events, education, and experiences that help people make lasting healthy lifestyle changes. Founded in 2017 by Olympia Auset, the LA organization supports increased health and well-being for individuals in the community by providing affordable access to healthy food in low-income areas. 

In 2022, SUPRSEED will be opening the doors of South Central LA’s first full service organic vegan grocery store with the help of the Eat the Change Grant. South Central, an area where only sixty grocery stores serve 1.3 million residents, lacks affordable access to food, especially healthy food. SUPRSEED is on a mission to end food apartheid in the community, ensuring that all Americans have access to fresh, organic food. 

Through research, strategy, networking, and policy advocacy, the Upcycled Food Association (UFA) is building a food system in which all food is elevated to its highest and best use. Upcycled Food Foundation, the nonprofit partner of UFA, is leveraging market forces to prevent food waste by coordinating hundreds of companies around the world and empowering millions of consumers to prevent climate change with the products they buy. Upcycled products prevent food waste by creating new, high quality products out of surplus food. It’s an innovative approach to food waste because it is the first consumer product-based solution, making it highly scalable and economically sustainable.

Urban Roots MN cultivates and empowers youth through nature, healthy food, and community. Located on the East Side of Saint Paul in Minnesota, the organization provides paid internships for under-resourced youth, ages 14-21, where they “learn and earn” through three food and environmental programs—Market Garden, Cook Fresh, and Conservation. Through their progressive program leadership model, youth leaders develop the confidence and skills needed to pursue educational and employment goals.

Funding from Eat the Change will support the Market Garden and Cook Fresh programs, workshops on nutrition education, and their Mobile Market that brings produce to local residents and accepts SNAP/EBT. 

Founded in 2019, Vegan Hacktivists started as a one-man team with the goal of launching one technology project per month to help promote a plant-based lifestyle. The organization has now grown to a large team of developers, designers, and content creators who work on building data-driven, disruptive, and innovative projects that support the plant-based eating and animal rights movements. Made up of a diverse community of passionate vegan activists, volunteers use their time and skills to build and design free websites and other technology projects for activist organizations and businesses.

Over the last year, the inspirational 10,000 Black Vegan Women Movement from Vegan Ingenuity empowered more than 10,000 Black women to go vegan to live longer, healthier lives. Vegan Ingenuity is a project of Tracye McQuirter, MPH, a public health nutritionist who has been plant-based for 33 years. She created Vegan Ingenuity in 2007 to change the health paradigm of African Americans using plant-based nutrition, with a focus on the nation's 24 million Black women. Her goal is to scale the success of the program over the next ten years.

African American women experience the highest overall rates of preventable, diet-related chronic diseases: one in two Black women over 20 have some form of heart disease; Black women are more likely to develop diabetes and to experience a stroke; and more than 50% of Black women are obese. In McQuirter’s words: “While the root of these conditions is 400 years of systemic white supremacy and we will continue to work to dismantle this unjust system, we simultaneously have the power to take back control of our health with plant-based nutrition, which can decrease the risk for these chronic diseases by up to 80% or more.” This idea is also captured in McQuirter’s empowering mantra that “It’s not the genes, it’s the greens.”

Wholesome Wave is a national nonprofit that believes that solving hunger is not just about providing more food, but also about providing the right food so those in need can lead a healthy life. The organization’s efforts are driven by the mission of democratizing nutrition by empowering underserved communities to make healthier food choices by increasing affordable access to fruits and vegetables. 

Wholesome Wave addresses complex problems with innovative and effective solutions, including the development of innovative payment technologies, programs such as “Wholesome Rx” (doctors writing prescriptions for produce) and “SNAP Doubling” (2 for 1 produce at grocery stores and farmers markets). Founded in 2007 by James Beard Award-winning Chef, Michel Nischan, and former U.S. Undersecretary of Agriculture, Gus Schumacher, the organization is based in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

World Resources Institute (WRI) is a global research organization founded in 1982. With more than 1,000 experts and staff in 60 countries, the organization turns big ideas into action at the nexus of environment and human well-being, and on behalf of its mission to move human society to live in ways that protect Earth’s environment and its capacity to provide for the needs and aspirations of current and future generations.

Plant-based diets represent one of the most powerful ways to reverse climate change, and World Resources Institute’s Cool Food Pledge is working to meet the challenge of feeding 10 billion people by 2050 while reducing agricultural GHG emissions in line with the Paris Agreement. Cool Food is a global platform through which companies, restaurants, universities, hospitals, and cities commit to a science-based pledge for food-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction, receive support to develop plans to bring about change, and promote their achievements. Cool Food works with major food providers—including companies, restaurants, universities, hospitals, city governments—to help them serve more delicious, healthy, plant-rich, climate-friendly meals.