After working at PRONTO for about a month, what became apparent to me was the level of inequality that the clients have been facing. Many clients have been part of the system for years now. One person was a client of PRONTO for almost 10 years, and is dependent on this being the food source for them and their family. What really started to illuminate this to me was a summer program that I am working on along with the Brentwood School District, where we are teaching kids about farming and nutrition. When the program started, I noticed this lack of equality from the view of nutritional education and what the kids eat. This connects well to one of the books I read in Race and Social Policy with Professor Ryan LaRochelle, Stuck in Place by Patrick Sharkey.
In Stuck in Place, the author talks about how people in urban neighborhoods overtime lose the ability for economic mobility and the ability to actually leave their neighborhoods. Oftentimes, they are stuck in these neighborhoods due to political choices and social policies that have done, sometimes with the intention to segregate people. So if someone’s parents are both born and raised in an urban neighborhood, their child has little ability to really leave where they were raised, due to factors ranging from living conditions, education, and even the people they are raised around. This idea is the reality that faced by people that live in Brentwood.
Brentwood is not an urban neighborhood. Challenges such as poverty, drugs, and violence make it a difficult to live at times. Wealthier home owners are uninterested in investing in Brentwood. People get trapped in an endless cycle of paying for rent and taxes, while not even being sure they have enough to pay for food.
With gangs on the streets, it becomes dangerous to live in the area especially for kids. Through our farm to table programs, we are targeting kids ages 12 to 14 which we know are most vulnerable. I believe teaching kids about farming and nutrition can help give them a better understanding of the world and how to take care of themselves better. From here, I hope that the kids are able to springboard into new experiences.