S7 Ep11: Growing Food, Growing Minds, Growing Change— How to Cultivate the Next Generation of Food Justice Leaders with Katherine Soll
“Providing pathways for today's young people who are going to be tomorrow's leaders is critical because we need them to be the problem solvers for us in the future. We have no alternative.” —Katherine Soll
Today's food injustice weighs heavily on our global conscience, with millions suffering from hunger while others face the dire consequences of unhealthy diets. The involvement of youth is paramount in addressing this pressing issue, as they carry the power to challenge the status quo, champion sustainability, and demand equitable access to nutritious food for all.
Teens for Food Justice (TFFJ) is an organization that works to end food insecurity through school-based hydroponic farming. Students then learn to how to operate and maintain the farms through STEM classes and internships. This gives students access to fresh, healthy food and teaches them about sustainable food systems. The goal is to address the lack of access to nutritious food and educate youth to advocate for change.
This week, Justine sits with TFFJ Founder and CEO, Katherine Soll to discuss the pressing issue of addressing food justice through youth empowerment and access to education.
Listen in as they share impactful stories of how the program advocates for healthier food policies, plans for expansion, the importance of youth involvement and community engagement in addressing food injustice, the health impact of food insecurity on vulnerable communities, and more.
Connect with Katherine:
Katherine Soll brings her lifelong and deep commitment to social justice and her belief in the power of young people to build a better and more equitable world in her role as Founder, CEO, and leader of Teens for Food Justice (TFFJ). By empowering youth as 21st-century urban farmers growing fresh produce for their schools, and as nutrition educator-advocates leading their communities to healthier futures, TFFJ’s multi-faceted approach offers more than a technologically-advanced solution to affordable fresh food access in neighborhoods that need it most – TFFJ is laying the foundation for a sustainable youth-led social justice movement that can close huge gaps in food access, health, and opportunity between lower-and upper-income communities in NYC and beyond. Katherine has received various awards for her work in the nonprofit sector, including her selection as a 2021 AARP Purpose Prize Honoree. She has held high-level management and marketing roles in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors throughout her career and serves on the advisory boards of various professional organizations, including the Food and Nutrition Innovation Council and the Healthy Living Coalition.
Episode Highlights:
04:59 Sustainable Food Systems and Youth Involvement
10:56 Food Justice and STEM Education
15:37 The Impact of School Gardening Program and Students’ Advocacy
19:43 Replicating the Farm-to-School Program
25:16 The Importance of Community Involvement
Resources:
Events
You are Invited to the Feast 2023 Gala as part of Teens For Food Justice’s 10th-anniversary
Where: The Light House, Chelsea Piers
When: October 30, 2023 at 6pm
Get Your Tickets Here: https://e.givesmart.com/events/y8y/
Tweets:
Grow. Learn. Lead. Hands-on farming programs are boosting well-being and confidence by connecting youth to fresh, healthy food. Learn more about this innovative approach and how you can support similar efforts in your community. @jreichman and @tffjinitiative Founder, Katherine Soll. #podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #Season7 #TeensForFoodJustice #hydroponicfarming #FoodJustice #FoodInsecurity #SchoolGardens #YouthEmpowerment #STEMEducation #HealthyFoodAccess #FoodPolicy
Inspirational Quotes:
02:50 “When you have a connection with growing [food], you're more likely to eat it. It's changing the paradigm of what can be on their plate, and also really giving them the information that can lead themselves and others to healthier futures by advocating for a fresh, sustainable, affordable food system.” —Katherine Soll
07:43 “When you do something yourself, you understand what goes into it and you can potentially replicate it.” —Justine Reichman
09:18 “Providing pathways for today's young people who are going to be tomorrow's leaders is critical because we need them to be the problem solvers for us in the future. We have no alternative.” —Katherine Soll
11:07 “Food is an incredible gateway to talking about other equitable resource allocation needs because everybody has to eat. Most people will agree that everybody's entitled to eat good quality food.” —Katherine Soll
12:26 “The more analytical and the more informed we are, the greater chance we have to make better choices.” —Justine Reichman
25:43 “We're not talking about small scale, standalone systems, we're talking about… a community intervention, where the goal is to eradicate food insecurity and these negative health outcomes” —Katherine Soll
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Good afternoon, and welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. With me today is Katherine Soll, CEO and Co-Founder of Teens For Food Justice.
Welcome, Katherine.
Katherine Soll: Hi Justine, it's so great to be here today. Thank you so much for inviting me.
Justine Reichman: Oh, it's my pleasure. I'm excited to talk about Teens For Food Justice. We just spent a few minutes getting to know each other, which I find really integral to how these conversations go. Because if you can connect beforehand, it really allows us to dive into the conversation because we already have built a little bit of a report in 10 minutes, so thanks for spending the time.
Katherine Soll: Absolutely. Sharing that New York story is always amazing. Particularly because for me, the work that we do really comes out of my experience growing up in New York, going into public school and sending my kids to public school. That's really what started me on my journey.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thanks for sharing that. And to that point, I'd love for you just to explain a little bit to our viewers and our listeners what Teens For Food Justice.
“When you have a connection with growing [food], you're more likely to eat it. It's changing the paradigm of what can be on their plate, and also really giving them the information that can lead themselves and others to healthier futures by advocating for a fresh, sustainable, affordable food system.” —Katherine Soll
Katherine Soll: So Teens For Food Justice is working to galvanize a youth led movement to end food insecurity in a generation through school based hydroponic farming. The way we accomplish that is we go into schools where the majority of students are eligible for free and reduced price lunch. And so they're impacted by lack of economic resources, but also live in communities where there's lack of access to fresh and healthy food. And therefore, these students are more likely, and of course, their families and their neighbors as well, to suffer the health implications of eating a diet that is fairly absent in fresh, healthy produce, and other non processed foods. So by going into these schools and building these high capacity hydroponic farms within the buildings, indoor vertical farms using latest technology, we can grow as much as 10,000 pounds of produce, and we train our students to actually do that work as part of their STEM classes, and also after school programming, and internships, work based paid internships on the campus. So what they're learning is, number one, a connection with fresh healthy food. Which of course, when you have a connection with growing it, you're more likely to eat it. It's bringing that fresh healthy food back to their families and their communities. So changing the paradigm of what can be on their plate, and also really giving them the information that can lead themselves and others to healthier futures by advocating for a fresh, sustainable, affordable food system.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. I'm curious, that was a lot. I just want to break it down so we can really dig into the process and be, what inspired you? So let's start with what inspired you, and then we'll go on from there. I know that you said your kids were in public school, which I'm in New York City, and I'm familiar with them. I grew up in New York City a little bit before them, but nonetheless. And so I'd love to hear about that experience and your experience since you also went to public school in New York inspired Teens For Food Justice.
Katherine Soll: Teens For Food Justice grew out of an organization that I had actually established before that, and that was called Students For Service. And the goal of that organization was to take the community service requirement that New York City middle and high school students have, and to turn it into something that was really connected to the really important and effective work for social justice that was being done by organisations and agencies throughout New York City. Most of those agencies don't have the capability of engaging youth volunteers for a whole variety of reasons, including oversight, bandwidth and all of that. But looking at that and talking about this kind of high level requirement for community service, I and friends of mine really felt like this was an opportunity that was being missed for kids to understand the disparities in access to resources in New York City, and to join into the work that was being done to address those. And we did that for a few years. It was a group of volunteers. As you know, originally adult volunteers. We partner with schools across the city, all different kinds of schools to identify students. And then we were able to network with college students, graduate students and young professionals who are interested in working alongside our students. And these agencies on service days got really big, really hard for an all volunteer organization to manage and we realized that we needed to really drill down and find a focus.
One of the areas that our students were really concerned about, what's sustainable food, affordable food in New York City, and how there can be neighborhoods where so much great food is available, and then other neighborhoods where there's no quality food available. And so we thought, this is maybe the area that we should be looking at and tackling. The hydroponic farming connection really came out of their concern about sustainability and our food system. And our Board Chair, Tara Swibel, who became connected with our organization in 2013 had a real interest in hydroponic farming, localized food supply and distribution. And so we thought, how do we connect these two ideas of kids growing food and this new technology? And from that, Teens For Food Justice was born.
Justine Reichman: Love that. Such a great mission, and it comes from such a personal place. What I'm wondering is now that you've built this infrastructure and you go into all these schools, you're teaching them how to do it, are they part of the process when you're doing it? Or is it, we set this up, and then they come in and learn?
“When you do something yourself, you understand what goes into it and you can potentially replicate it.” —Justine Reichman
Katherine Soll: Well, it's really a combination that depends on the school, it depends on the timing, it depends on the age of the kids. So for example, our very first farm that we built, the kids actually built it. It was really amazing. These middle school students literally build the steel superstructure that the growing systems are part of. We've had students that are, the current build that we're working on which is our 6th New York City Farm. We have six farms, but they all serve 19 schools. Because so many schools in New York City are co located, the impact per farm is quite large. So at that school, which is high school and middle school, through high school, there are high school physics classes that are coming in and helping to build the farm because they want those kids to have the hands-on experience of doing that. So slows the process down a little bit of getting the farm up and running. But I think it's worth it for the students to have the experience with the technology.
Justine Reichman: Yeah, I would agree. When you do something yourself, you understand what goes into it. You can potentially replicate it if these kids wanted to be able to better understand how to integrate that into their homes because there's ways to do that nowadays. Maybe not such a large system like you guys are doing, but there's other ways to do vertical farming in your home and do all sorts of things to create greater access and pique interest. So I'm curious, are you familiar with Stephen Ritz at the Green Bronx Machine?
Katherine Soll: Yes, he's great. He's a wonderful colleague and partner. And he's an incredible personality.
Justine Reichman: So for those folks not familiar with Stephen Ritz, we've had him on the podcast so go check that out. He's also doing stuff in the New York area around creating gardens with the students there, and he institute's programs everywhere around the world. But this is a little different. I'm curious, are you working with the schools so that you can similarly create a program that can go into each school? What's your plan for expansion throughout New York?
Katherine Soll: Yeah. The thing about food insecurity is a global problem that exists everywhere. So identifying solutions to the issue of healthy, affordable food access is a critical need for us as a country, as a world. The United States is not at the forefront of identifying those systems, but we're catching on. And providing pathways for today's young people who are going to be tomorrow's leaders is critical because we need them to be the problem solvers for us in the future because we have no alternative. We can continue to grow food and distribute food the way that we have been for reasons around access of resources, needed to grow food, pricing and the health implications of the food that is mostly consumed certainly here in America. And so in terms of expansion, this program can go anywhere. It can go anywhere. We really try to focus on communities where this problem is endemic so the students who are attending the schools themselves are dealing with food insecurity as an issue and a problem in their lives every day. And also, the communities that the schools are located in are also food insecure, at least for a significant portion of the population. In New York City, there's a lot of gentrification issues that come into that. So you will have neighborhoods where food is coming in that is quality, fresh produce, but it's so unaffordable for the residents who have been there for a long time. And so this is a way of helping to address that. But it's also a way of raising awareness, providing training and experience for young people to understand not only how to do this, but that they can.
Justine Reichman: And why is it important, right?
“Food is an incredible gateway to talking about other equitable resource allocation needs because everybody has to eat. Most people will agree that everybody's entitled to eat good quality food.” —Katherine Soll
Katherine Soll: Yes, exactly. It's also training in health, nutrition and advocacy around social justice that goes beyond food. Food is an incredible gateway to talking about other equitable resource allocation needs, because everybody has to eat. And most people will agree if you talk to them that everybody's entitled to eat good quality food and to have enough food. Very few people would advocate that people should be hungry, or people shouldn't be able to eat good food and have access to that. So it's a way of setting a table for a larger conversation as well that's why we call the organization Teens For Food Justice. Because ultimately, the vision is a society where these problems do not exist.
Justine Reichman: Coincidentally, our tagline is eating right as a human right.
Katherine Soll: Yes, yes.
Justine Reichman: But I think it's really important and true. One of the core values around NextGen Purpose and Essential Ingredients, these media platforms, and these initiatives that we're doing is to give people access to information so they can make more informed choices whether you're a teen or an adult, whether you're learning how to do something, whether you need to buy a product for your family, or you're building a new innovation. And so it's really important to begin these lessons earlier on. Because the more analytical, and the more informed we are, the greater chance we have to make better choices. What you're doing is really helping the children build a foundation for a brighter future in so many ways, because food connects to our health, that connects to our wellness, it connects to the planet, it connects to the future, connects to all these things. And by giving those students that kind of access, that kind of information to education given what we know is going on in the world, there's a chance that at least these set of folks people will be able to build a better, brighter, healthier, stronger future based on more informed choices, or decisions that they can make.
Katherine Soll: I completely agree. I think that there are three prongs to it, which is it's food access, but it's also access to education and opportunity. And all of that is wrapped up in our program. For our students, this is an incredibly cutting edge and technologically sophisticated way to learn stem. These systems are really high tech. We have commercial growers who come in and who are using the same types of systems to produce food at a commercial scale and they're telling us that a student who was trained in our farm would have the ability to walk right onto their floor and have an active, fruitful position there. We're training them to do the work that a commercial ag tech grower would do. So if you think about that, from the context of STEM education, and opening up pathways for opportunity in STEM fields for kids and connecting them to stem in and of itself that has a huge value.
Justine Reichman: I couldn't agree more. We're talking about urban areas here, at least in the New York area. There's plenty of rural areas, but the experience and the access is a little bit different. I grew up in New York, and I didn't have any access to agriculture. That was not something I saw. I went to the Union Square marker as I got older. But I think giving them access to see this, it's going to integrate into people's lives now in a different way, in a more meaningful way because they're really connected to it at the farmer level. Understanding how things are being grown, maybe touch on regenerative and learn how to build up for them. The future where I think that years ago wasn't even a conversation, people didn't think about the innovations and food that we saw that was being created back then. There was no conversation about what was going on with the farmer? What was in the soil? How are you building that? And the conversation between organic and conventional. So all these things, they've been around now. We've been having conversations probably since the 70's because that's when I was born. But I think that as we've evolved, it's getting more and more mainstream. The access to it is so much greater. I think that really connects these kids in a different way. And I'd love to hear from you some of the stories from the kids and how it's impacted their lives because I don't know that they would have had that connection before.
Katherine Soll: I was actually just going to say that I wanted to share a few stories with you. So one story I'd like to share is about a student at one of our middle school partners out in Brownsville, which is a very complicated area to live in. It has an incredible community based advocacy movement within it, and an incredible urban gardening movement within it. And at the same time, it also has enormous economic challenges that are only being exacerbated by gentrification. And there are lots of statistics that you can look up about Brownsville that are indicative of how challenging it is for kids growing up in that area. And so one of our students at this school, this is a school that has the capability through its farm of producing about 6000 pounds of produce per year, which is a lot. And it goes into the cafeteria every day as it does with all of our schools. And it's distributed to the local community through partnerships that we have with local CBOs. But also, students and their families are able to take the food home.
Well, one student decided that she wanted to work with the school to raise money for a community fridge that would be outside the building, and that the students would prepare salads from the farm that they would put into the community fridge and make available for local residents to grab for a snack whenever they wanted. They started that program. And of course, it's been hugely successful. But to think that a student in middle school would have come up with an idea like that and inspired her classmates to join her in this effort, to have all those kids making salad once a week to put in the community fridge is really amazing. Everything about that is, I'm growing the food, I want to eat the food myself. I understand why it's important for other people to be able to eat this food, and I'm going to make it available to them. So when you think of how deeply entrenched this is, this young girl's thinking, it's pretty remarkable. But really, that is what the farm does. I mean, it's really what the farm does for the kids.
Another story that I love to share is how we have brought our students to testify before the City Council on various issues related to healthy food access or reducing sugar in menus. We had students who testified around changing the default choice for beverage on kids menus in restaurants from soda to water. And when the council voted for that bill, they shared with us that our students' testimony was really influential in the council's decision. And I think giving high school seniors the opportunity to go into City Hall into the council chambers and testify in front of the entire council and the audience like that is a powerful opportunity for them to see that they really do have the capability of raising their voice and being heard. Those are really valuable lessons. Those are a couple of examples that I really love to share about the impact on the kids and the work that they do.
Justine Reichman: Thank you for sharing that. That's really impactful. It shows the impact you're able to have with these kids by doing this. So I'm curious, you're mostly in New York, but do you have plans to expand to connect with others since you're able to have such a large impact with the council by creating changing policies with other states to be able to do the same thing around the country?
Katherine Soll: Well, we actually have a farm in Denver, Colorado. Our first expansion was to Denver. We actually opened that farm at the tail end of the pandemic. Of course, the pandemic slowed everything down because our school was closed. We had to close down all of our farms, stop producing. And during the pandemic, we made some enormous shifts in our operations, our funders, and our partners who are extremely flexible about that. So that we were able to continue to source food, use our funding to source food, and to generate donations and work with partners to distribute over the course of the pandemic, 685,000 pounds of fresh produce and other food into the communities that we serve through our school based programming. But needless to say, it really took two full years before our school farms were really back up and running. I would say last fall was when we were really able to get fully back so we opened a farm at the tail end of the pandemic in Denver. That farm is an incredible partnership with us. And actually, just let me go back because we opened that farm, I guess it was like June. I think it was June 21st. But there are plans. We are working actively with Denver Public Schools to expand beyond that one location, which was the original plan prior to the pandemic which slowed everything back down. And in fact, I was having some conversations yesterday with the DPS central team about where we might want to expand this going forward.
But one of the reasons why we chose Denver, and I think this is really important to note is that,of course, these connections were made before the pandemic, Denver was a little early and thinking about the health impacts of our food supply on children and health outcomes for our black and brown communities as a result of lack of access to healthy food. And so they created a tax on highly processed food. I found out about this kind of early while the bill was still being considered. And we went to Denver where our Co-Founder and our Board Chair grew up and had a lot of relationships, and we were able to connect with the school system there. And they got in right out of the gate so we were able to receive funding from the fund that was created from that tax. They're supporting healthy kids initiatives throughout Denver, and this is one of the ones that they chose to fund. So that's been pretty exciting.
Justine Reichman: That's very exciting. So now, you're working in New York, and you're working in Denver. I'm just curious, the overarching mission, is this within the country issue? What is the big dream here for you with Teens For Food Justice?
Katherine Soll: The original big dream for me was to really address this problem in a meaningful and significant way throughout New York, because it's my home. And I think that this problem is so huge here. Of course, it only escalated since the pandemic to really replicate this program across New York City so that we could eliminate this problem here in New York, which is not only my city, but it is the city.
Justine Reichman: Their local in San Francisco, oh, we're going to the city of like, where are you going?
Katherine Soll: Exactly. But honestly, we really have been working for a long time to establish the ability for this program to replicate really anywhere so that we can create a TFFJ in a box where you're able to, your region, your city, or a district school, and you have the ability to take this program and expand it in a larger way so that you can have impact across the community. We're really starting that effort here in New York City out in the Rockaways. So we received funding two years ago from the USDA in partnership with the Southborough office to open a multi school farm hub in the Rockaways, which is one of our most under-resourced and isolated areas in New York. We are opening our second farm. And within about a month, that farm will be up and growing. And then there are two more farms that are ready to start construction within 24 years. We hope that they'll be both up and running by June of 24. So this will be our first regional hub approach, which is the direction that I really hope to take. Really looking at cities and regions that are looking to do this and in that bigger way so that it's not just an individual school and its surrounding community, but it's a whole neighborhood that isn't affected by this problem.
Justine Reichman: For example, Los Angeles wanted to, if they wanted to get involved, and they wanted to do something like this, and they wanted to create a hub, but they contacted you, could you work with them to do this?
Katherine Soll: Sure. Absolutely.
Justine Reichman: So you have a process in place for how to create this? So is that something that you're actively doing?
“We're not talking about small scale, standalone systems, we're talking about… a community intervention, where the goal is to eradicate food insecurity and these negative health outcomes” —Katherine Soll
Katherine Soll: So we are in conversation with other cities all the time, and we have been approached by many of them. There are a number of partners that need to be connected to the processes. I said, your school district needs to be connected to it. We're not talking about small scale standalone systems, we're talking about an integrated--
Justine Reichman: You need active partners. You need people that want to participate, not passive. So anybody that's interested in doing this, wants to be in partnership with you, and needs to have their schools, they all have been working towards the same common goal. If the school isn't interested, or somebody else isn't interested, it doesn't work.
Katherine Soll: This is a community intervention where the goal is to eradicate food insecurity and these negative health outcomes that come from consuming a diet like this. Like the one that we basically have here in the US, and also building a sustainable food system,that's not going to be vulnerable to the kinds of disruptions that we saw during COVID when our food supply was devastated by the loss of workers, the shutdowns, transportation issues. It was impossible, and it just exacerbated an already terrible paradigm. There are a lot of reasons why, and a lot of lenses from which a region, a district, a city, a town might want to take a look at a program like this as a solution to various problems, and not the least of which also is providing its youth in school with hands on learning opportunities that connect it to a burgeoning green economy that is going to inevitably become part of the way, a significant part of the way that we grow food here.
Justine Reichman: It takes a village.
Katherine Soll: But when that village comes together, it makes a really, really big impact.
Justine Reichman: So I'm wondering about the impact. And in terms of these students, are you seeing an impact in their education and the test scores? Because if you're eating healthy, your mind is more fresh?.And how has it impacted them health wise? So we're talking about a population of people that might not have had access to this kind of food, have you guys seen any? Or do you have any results on that? Or have you seen anything like that?
Katherine Soll: We do evaluations and surveys of our students in our schools every year, and we see a number of different really positive outcomes. We're not measuring children's health outcomes over a period of time. That's not something that we're doing currently, it's something that we would be interested in partnering with a health system to do that hasn't happened as of yet. But I think that there would be a lot of value to that. However, what we're really seeing is students who are reporting that they have made substantive changes to their food choices, and that they have brought this information along with the food home to their families and that has influenced how their families are thinking about their food choices, their snack dollars, all of those outputs. So that's one area, and I think that's really important. But I think that there are some other really important outcomes as well. They have to do with students' reports around their well being when they're on the farm. Students report because you're dealing with, in many cases, students who are living with a lot of toxic stress in their lives due to economic uncertainty. Sometimes, we're dealing with students who are in transitional housing situations. So the fact that they come to the farm and they feel a really strong sense of well being is extremely important that they have access to that opportunity in school, which in and of itself can be stressful. We are also seeing our students reporting really much greater levels of confidence in sharing their ideas and in their ability to see a bright future, and to be part of a process of building a bright future. And I think those are very, very important outcomes particularly today because we know that the pandemic, the lockdown and the loss of in person school really made some very major negative impact on our young people. So any interventions that can be provided in a school setting which are very valuable for young people.
Justine Reichman: So if anybody wanted to get in touch, if there was another state and other school, somebody wanted to get in touch to learn more to maybe try to collaborate with you and partner with you to integrate this into their school system, how might they do that?
Katherine Soll: They can go to our website, teensforfoodjustice.org, and they can take a look at all of the resources that are there which will give them a lot of information on our program and what we do. You can email me at kfsoll@teensforfoodjustice.org, or go to our website and you'll see the general contact mailbox and phone number. Also, I just want to put in a plug though our gala that is happening on October 30. And the reason that I want to share that is it's our 10th anniversary. And so we're really excited. The 10 years of Teens For Food Justice have gone by, and we are at this time through our program serving like 8000 students every year through our 6 farms and the programming that we offer. And that's an amazing, amazing accomplishment in just 10 years.
Justine Reichman: Congratulations. So we will make sure to put that in the show notes and spread the word because this is such a worthy organization trying to create change in advocacy within the New York area and beyond. So for those folks that are interested in connecting, we will put the address in the show notes. We'll put the email address and the contact information so you can connect directly so that we can help spread this change beyond the tricep but beyond New York, over the bridges and through the tunnels to other communities that could use the support the resources to help to support their students and communities. So thank you so much for joining me today. I really appreciate it. It was great to get to know you and learn more about what you're doing.
Katherine Soll: Thank you so much, Justine. It was great to be a part of this today. I love your work. I love your podcast, so it's an honor to be included.
Justine Reichman: Oh, you're very kind. Thank you so much.
Katherine Soll: Thank you.
