Get Fresh Daily
Title: Healthy Food Access in West Philadelphia Black Communities
Student Interns:
Chloe Chiota
University of Pennsylvania, School of Dental Medicine
Sophie Hoff
University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Policy & Practice
Academic Preceptor:
Johanna K.P. Greeson, PhD, MSS, MLSP
University of Pennsylvania, School of Social Policy & Practice
Abby Quinn Peterson, DMD, MPH
University of Pennsylvania, School of Dental Medicine
Elizabeth Powell, DDS, MPH
University of Pennsylvania, School of Dental Medicine
Community Preceptor:
Jiana Murdic, MS
Founding Director, Get Fresh Daily
Community Site:
Get Fresh Daily is a West Philadelphia-based organization whose mission is to improve education and healthy food access to the predominantly Black local community. Get Fresh Daily addresses food justice through various means, including advocacy work, hosting Black farmers’ markets with produce grown in their community gardens, and packing and shipping boxes to families’ doors at an accessible price. It also runs a youth summer camp that emphasizes healthy lifestyle habits to give kids a strong foundation. Get Fresh Daily is a pillar of the West Philadelphia Community, introducing neighbors to gardening and healthy living, and providing a space for community gathering.
Team’s Experience:
The Bridging the Gaps interns assisted Get Fresh Daily by serving as camp counselors at Camp Excellence and by helping to organize and lead a food justice audit of West Philadelphia to submit to Philadelphia 2050, an initiative that will guide the city’s future policy. At summer camp, the interns helped lead activities that promoted mindfulness, empowerment, and healthy living for children in grades 1 through 8. For the food justice project, they helped organize and conduct observations and data collection during community walk-throughs of three contrasting Philadelphia neighborhoods: the 52nd Street Corridor in West Philadelphia, Chestnut Hill, and Germantown. The project also included capturing content and interviewing local store owners for a documentary. The purpose of these audits was to compare access to healthy foods and green spaces across the three Philadelphia communities and to use these observations to make recommendations to the Philadelphia 2050 project to promote food justice.
Reflections
This summer at Get Fresh Daily has been an incredible, unforgettable experience. GFD was truly a perfect community site for me, as gardening is a longtime hobby of mine, and I love children and hope to work with them in my future practice. I really enjoyed the days at summer camp playing duck, duck, goose with the students, and really being able to get to know each of them throughout the summer, as well as helping harvest in the gardens for the Black Farmers Markets. I absolutely loved giving the campers a presentation on oral health and answering their enthusiastic questions! It is fulfilling that in addition to the ‘fun’ work of camp, Sophie and I had the opportunity to contribute meaningfully to a project that is guaranteed to guide Philadelphia policy through official partnership with the Philadelphia 2050 project. Our food justice audits of Philadelphia communities are being used to guide the recommendations to improve healthy food and green space in West Philadelphia. I am grateful for the opportunity to engage in advocacy work in the local community and to have played a part in Get Fresh Daily’s mission. I know I will benefit greatly from the perspective and skills I have gained this summer in my future career as a dental professional.
Chloe Chiota
The opportunity to spend my summer working with an organization as committed to advocating for the health and wellness of their community as Get Fresh Daily was invaluable. Through working with the staff at GFD and taking part in the Philadelphia 2050 Project, I gained vital insight into the importance of healthy food access and wellness spaces within communities to promote the strong physical and mental health of community members. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to work with the team at Get Fresh Daily to audit neighborhoods around Philadelphia to understand inequities in healthy food access through the Philadelphia 2050 project, because I know this research will be used to better advocate for food justice efforts in the future. In addition to this project, I got the opportunity to support Camp Excellence, which is a four-week health and wellness summer camp for kids. This role was a fun way to connect with the kids and spend lots of time outdoors this summer. Get Fresh Daily allowed me to have a fun, active summer outside where I was able to spend time in the community garden, go on long walks to survey neighborhoods, and play outside with the kids at summer camp. This internship was an exciting new way for me to engage in community advocacy.
Sophie Hoff
Partners
