Run Black & Green, Metcalfe Park Community Bridges and Harmon Community Farm are on a mission to address Milwaukee’s growing food access crisis. Their latest effort was a community-led day of action and wellness on July 11.
It’s been a year since Metcalfe Park lost its only grocery store. The event started in the now deserted Pick ’n Save parking lot at 2355 N. 35th St.
“This was a wrongful execution of food access,” said Nateya Taylor, founder of Run Black & Green, as she read a poem.
A year since closing
Since the close of the 35th Street Pick ’n Save in Metcalfe Park at least six more grocery stores have shuttered across Milwaukee.
Residents, community organizations, advocates and elected officials gathered during the event to highlight the need for equitable investment in neighborhood food systems and demonstrate that food justice is rooted in lived experience, community organizing and collective action.
Melody McCurtis, deputy director and lead organizer for Metcalfe Park Community Bridges, said Milwaukee is experiencing food apartheid.
Food apartheid is a term used by activists that looks at historical issues such as racism and segregation in addition to the food system.
When Pick ’n Save closed, Metcalfe Park Community Bridges shifted its advocacy efforts to focus on food access
Since then, the organization has led efforts to help people access food directly by partnering with groups like Tricklebee Cafe and FEED MKE to open community fridges.
Five community-powered fridges are now open on the city’s North Side.
The organization also helped create the city’s Food Justice Collective, which has worked to declare food apartheid a public health crisis, advance $2.8 million for food and pharmacy access, move forward protections requiring 60-day notice before grocery store closures and direct city departments to act on real solutions.
“I’m proud of our community,” McCurtis said. “We’ve done all of this in 10 months without a campaign.”
Taylor joined the effort after grocery stores closed in her Northwest Side community and seeing the work Metcalfe Park was doing.
“I remember seeing the Walmart on Silver Spring close about three years ago,” she said. “Even before that I always had to go far to access food.”
What’s next
McCurtis said there are a few things she worries about.
Primarily, the leases on the buildings where the closed stores are located.
“We’ve been left with a dumping sight,” she said. “These buildings are owned by people who aren’t from Wisconsin, let alone Milwaukee.”
The event featured a civic engagement teach-in, collective commitment ceremony, community walk to Black Joy Farm, gardening and soil workshops, storytelling, a free community barbecue and a grocery giveaway.
The goal was to provide both short-term and long-term solutions to food access.
“We want to give that education,” McCurtis said. “People need to know how to plant food if they have lead in their soil or what they can do.”
During the event people made commitments to the community.
Among them was Koren Dennison, who created My Kousin’s House, a community space she operates from her Metcalfe Park home.
“I commit to continue creating space for both youth and the elderly in our community,” she said.
Others committed to spending time, being allies or educating themselves in food justice.
McCurtis said she believes that Metcalfe Park will be OK.
“I believe that we already have everything we need to change our circumstances,” she said.
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