Giving Compass' Take: 

• The New Food Economy talks with Leah Penniman, author of the new book called "Farming While Black," about how many communities of color don't have access to healthy, fresh food. 

• Penniman explores ways in which organizing, socially-driven financing and forming interracial alliances can help lift these communities from what has been termed "food apartheids." How can we all be part of the solution?

• Here's how the Resilience Fund is supporting many food-driven organizations serving up social impact.

Near the end of a five-hour delivery run, Lytisha Wyatt rings an apartment in Albany, New York’s South End. A little girl answers the door, furtively accepting the box of organic produce. It’s one of 97 being delivered throughout the area, and the last of the season, courtesy of Soul Fire Farm’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. As Wyatt walks away, the girl’s mother leans out the second floor window. “Thank you so much! Thank you for everything! Is this the last week? Thank you!”

Every week during harvest season, Soul Fire delivers sustainably grown vegetables, eggs, chicken, and other produce to about 100 families, or roughly 300 people in Albany, Troy, and Grafton. The boxes are priced on a sliding scale based on what recipients can afford. Some receive them for free, ‘solidarity shares’ subsidized by those who can pay more. This week, the box contains winter squash, two onions, five pounds of potatoes, daikon radishes, cabbage, turnips, carrots, salad mix, collard greens, broccoli leaves, kale, green tomatoes, parsley, and popcorn.

Food like this isn’t easy to come by in Albany’s South End, a federally recognized “food desert.” The term has come under criticism in recent years for failing to convey the fact that food insecurity is a man-made phenomenon, often the result of discriminatory policy. Food insecurity affects black communities at a rate of more than 26 percent, and over 22 percent for Latinx folks, compared to a national average of 15 percent. The South End is more than 70 percent African-American, and it’s where most of Soul Fire’s food gets delivered.

Read the full article about learning more about food justice by Doug Bierend at The New Food Economy.