Nationally recognized author, speaker and expert on food justice issues Mark Winne will be featured at a talk and signing of his book Closing the Food Gap, which examines methods to get decent, healthy food to our nation’s poor.
The event sponsored by Food Security Partners of Middle Tennessee will be held on Thursday, July 24, at 6 p.m., at the Second Presbyterian Church at 3511 Belmont Blvd. in Nashville. The event is free and open to the public and will be followed by a light reception featuring locally grown foods.
Closing the Food Gap chronicles the beginnings of the food movement and the crippling effect Reagan-era cuts to federal food assistance programs had on the poor and elderly. Winne charts the role "supermarket abandonment" and the proliferation of fast-food chains have played in the growing obesity and diabetes crisis among low-income Americans.
He also provides an insider’s look at strategies employed by those working to close the food gap in communities across the country, from New Orleans to Brooklyn to Oregon. Food banks, community gardens, farmer’s markets, cooperative supermarkets, community supported agriculture programs and nutrition programs are just a few of the models he discusses.
The Food Security Partners of Middle Tennessee brings people together to create a more healthy, just and sustainable food system for Middle Tennessee. The organization has more than 100 partners and members representing all parts of the food system, from farm to fork.
The Food Security Partners is a project of the Vanderbilt Institute for Public Policy Studies and is funded through community support. For more information, visit www.foodsecuritypartners.org.
Media Contact: Missy Pankake, (615) 322-NEWS
missy.pankake@vanderbilt.edu