Feeding Our Communities

The latest episode of Rural Roots Rising, ROP’s radio show and podcast, is available now! Listen to Feeding Our Communities to hear how Harry MacCormack in Benton County, OR and Martina Leforce in Madison County, KY are organizing to bring quality food access to their communities and adapting to meet the changing needs during this COVID-19 pandemic. Listen to the latest episode, Feeding Our Communities, at ruralrootsrising.org or anywhere you get your podcasts. You can also find out when your local radio station is playing Feeding Rural Communities at ruralrootsrising.org!

Harry MacCormack, of Sunbow Farm in Benton County, has played a key role in creating collectives and organizations vital to local food access, including Ten Rivers Food Web, First Alternative Natural Foods Co-Op, Corvallis-Albany Farmers Market, and Oregon Tilth! He has shown a decades-long commitment to growing and distributing food in rural communities across the Willamette Valley and beyond.

As part of Grow Appalachia, Martina helped start Berea Kids Eat in Berea, Kentucky, which provides free meals and snacks to anyone in the community under the age of eighteen. As the Coronavirus pandemic shut down schools and workplaces across the country, Berea Kids Eat adapted quickly and creatively to continue providing food to children who needed it most.

Across the state, human dignity groups are grappling with how to make sure our communities have the food that they need to get through this time while organizing for long-term change. Are you organizing around food access in your community or looking for a way to get started? We’d love to connect! Reach out to us at Sasha@rop.org.

Listen to the latest episode, Feeding Our Communities, at ruralrootsrising.org, on a radio station near you, or on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, TuneIn/Alexa, or Google Podcasts. Check it out and help us keep the conversation going!

  • We see these podcasts as part of our ongoing conversations with the ROP network and listeners. What does this episode spark for you? What ideas do you have to share? Send your comments, questions, and thoughts to Sasha@rop.org!

  • Share Rural Roots Rising with your human dignity group, book club or local radio station! How is food insecurity impacting your community? Are there people near you working to improve food access? Discuss this episode with your friends and email Sasha@rop.org to let us know what you talked about!

  • Are you inspired to work on issues of food access and distribution? Need help getting started? Reach out to Sasha@rop.org to connect with an ROP organizer who can help you put a plan together!

We can’t wait to hear from you!

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