By Elizabeth Prom-Wormley
Faisal Ilyas: Who is Shalom Farms? How and when did you get established?
Analise Adams: Shalom Farms is a small non-profit located in Richmond Virginia. We were started out of a legacy of a couple different social service organizations that were located here in Richmond that served the needs of low income communities across the city. So we were originally started as the Bethlehem Community Center back in the 1930’s and then out of that organization grew a couple different collaborations and mergers becoming the Bethlehem Wilson Community Center….Their mission has always been in different ways to meet the needs of families that have needs across Richmond. So they did that in a couple of different ways. They provided services for children. They provided services for older adults. They did some community organizing. In about the early 1990’s they became The United Methodist Urban Ministries of Richmond. And that sort of where things started kind of solidifying. They started taking on a more community organizing approach looking at, you know, what are the needs that we are hearing from the people that we’re serving in these low income communities. And they were hearing a lot of different things. Affordable housing was a big one. Education. But kind of this underlying current, no matter what communities they were in, no matter what issue they were organizing around was this idea that, you know, it’s really hard to achieve a goal, or to meet any other need if the need for food isn’t met. And so out of this there was this desire to address the need for consistent access to healthy food in areas of our city that are underserved by things like grocery stores or traditional food outlets. So out of that they decided to start this idea of a project called Shalom Farms. And so it started as a really small, you know, couple of people with some shovels, but decided to plant a couple of rows of vegetables to kind of see where it would go. That was in about 2008. So from there Shalom Farms has kind of become the main focus of the organization. So now we are Shalom Farms. We don’t identify as United Methodist Urban Ministries of Richmond because our sole focus is Shalom Farms. So currently Shalom Farms is a non-profit. We have a farm out in Goochland. That’s the physical Shalom Farms. It’s about 6 acres. We grow over 20 different varieties of fresh nutrient dense healthy food that are kind of both popularly demanded in the communities that we serve but then also some challenge foods. So we grow, you know, the familiar crookneck squash that a lot of people have seen and are used to. We have also grown a couple of other varieties that are equally as nutrient dense but kind of get people out of their comfort zone like a zephyr squash which looks very similar but is like green and yellow. So it’s just kind of something fun to get people to open their mind and think about food in a different way.
Faisal Ilyas: Wow, never heard of that vegetable.
Analise Adams: Yeah!
Faisal Ilyas: Seems like Shalom Farms has a deeper history then I initially thought which is awesome. Can you tell us explicitly, if you haven’t already, what Shalom Farm’s mission is?
Analise Adams: Absolutely. So our mission is to work with communities to increase access to healthy food and to support to lead healthy lives. And so out of that history we knew, it’s important to increase access in a variety of different ways. So we look at how can we increase physical access, economic access, to fresh and healthy food and what are the resources we can provide or what other partnerships can we build to help make that access the most meaningful for the people that we serve.
Faisal Ilyas: Shalom in Hebrew means “peace”. Does religion play a major part in Shalom Farm’s mission?
Analise Adams: Yeah so in our history we were affiliated with the United Methodist Church of Richmond specifically with Richmond district but kind of with the church statewide. The name Shalom came from that idea of peace and of interdependence. This idea that food is an amazingly powerful tool to create peace across our city. It’s something that we all identify with right? We all have to eat. So this idea that no matter what spot in the city you’re coming from, you have a role in the food system. And that’s kind of where this network approach and the idea of peace fits into farm.
Faisal Ilyas: Wow that’s beautiful. How many farms does Shalom Farms manage?
Analise Adams: Right now just one. We have about 6 acres on the back of camp Westview James which is United Methodist Summer Camp. That was kind of the original spot of the farm. That’s where the small garden started. We’ve now reached the capacity of the 6 acres. We’ve really maxed out our space. In the future, we’re moving this winter to a site in Powhattan that’s about twice the size. It’ll give us the opportunity over the next five years to grow about 300,000 lbs. of food which is a little over twice what we do now so we’re really excited for that opportunity.
Faisal Ilyas: How is Shalom Farms funded?
Analise Adams: Shalom Farms is funded through a variety of different ways. Our two biggest sources of funding are grants and then private donors. So we have an annual fund of donors that support what we do in addition to some larger grants like we have grants from the USDA, CDC, in addition to some smaller grants through some local foundations and local funders. We also have about 5-10% of what we grow. We sell for our own income because we think it’s important to kind of diversify revenue streams to be the most consistent. And so we sell to Ellwood Thompson and a couple of different produce aggregators.
Faisal Ilyas: So you are partnered with them and they distribute the food for you? How does the food get to your communities?
Analise Adams: Yeah, absolutely. So the earned income portion is a really small portion of what we grow, but the majority of what we grow is distributed through programs like the ones that Dannon and I manage. So we have a variety of different programs. We have two community based programs called the Prescription Produce Plan and the Youth Run Farm Stand programs. Those were kind of our initial programs out of this desire to kind of help get food to where it needs to go. I suppose I should back up a little bit. Our first program was a partnership network. So we were growing food, food was growing, it was 2010~2011 and the food needed to get somewhere, right? So we were having these great harvests coming off the farm but they needed to get it to the communities that we serve. So we originally started partnering with FeedMore the central Virginia food bank and then sort of grew that partnership network out a little bit to not only support FeedMore as the largest distributor of food across our city, but also work with smaller organizations like …. Ginter Park United Methodist Food Pantry or The Neighborhood Resource Center of Greater Fulton, some of these smaller community organizations that were finding it really hard to serve the food that they know their populations needed. And so by supporting them with free produce we were able to kind of help them enhance what they were already doing. Out of that sort of came this desire for community based programming. So the two programs I mentioned Prescription Produce Plann and Youth Run Farm Stands both work with families and individuals to kind of help increase access over a certain period of time in addition to providing skills, resources, and education to really enhance that experience. So our farm stands operate from June to November which is our growing season. And then we also provide those programs to really enhance that experience. We have a new program just launched this year called The Mobile Market which is a custom designed refrigerated truck that we drive around to about 15 different communities to provide Farm stands from anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours to provide that consistent food access to fresh and healthy food. Everything we sell is locally grown. Most of it is grown on our farm and everything is affordable and we take SNAP which is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Faisal Ilyas: Was that truck at National Night Out?
Analise Adams: It was yeah! Oh that wasn’t the one you saw. That was the Bon Secours Class A Roll, but our truck was at the North Side National Night Out. So for us it’s a great kind of conversation starter and a great way to kind of help start that dialogue and meet the need of fresh food in the community. And then I’ll pass it off to Dannon to talk a little bit about The Healthy Corner Store Initiative.
Dannon Wilson: So as far as the corner stores, we are actually partnered with the Richmond Health Department. So we work very closely together as far as onboarding stores, recruitment stores, and distributing to the stores that we work with. We currently have eight. So seven of those stores are corner stores and then the eighth store is actually a grocery store in the East End called Food Circus and then the other seven stores, five of which are in the south side, one is in Central Richmond, and then we have another store in the East End as well. I can give you the names if you want.
Faisal Ilyas: Sure, yeah
Dannon Wilson: So the first store that we have is called Hopkins Store and t South Side. The second store is called James Food Store, also in South Side. There’s Sunoco which is like a, it’s actually one of our unique stores. It’s a gas station and a corner store. And then we also work with RS Express, 701 Express, and all five of those that I mentioned are in the South Side. Then we work with Davis Market which is in central Richmond right on W. Grace Street. And then Stop N Go in East End and then Food Circus again in the East End. So those are our core eight stores and we are always looking to recruit and onboard additional stores. And as far as distributing and making sure that produce is provided to the store, we source for our program produce from the farm especially during our farm season from June to November and then we also use a supplier in Scott’s Addition called Rudy’s Exotic Mushrooms. They are an extremely wonderful partner that sources things that we just don’t grow on the farm like pears and oranges and apples. So they provide us with any additional produce, especially when it’s not farm season when we want to continue to stock and deliver to the stores. So deliveries right now are done twice a week: Mondays and Thursdays. Each store receives a delivery twice a week. We provide them with all the produce that they need, any resources, technical assistance, to make sure that they are supported in their efforts. We also provide them with feedback as far as tracking their inventory. There’s a lot of data capturing involved and sales information. We track that information. It’s also reported to the health department and we provide that feedback to the store owner so that they know kind of how they’re doing. They kind of have a general idea when they just see the foot traffic and just the sales that people come in to the register. But also the qualitative piece is just getting great feedback from customers. When I’m in the store, when staff are in the store, the customers saying what they want, what they need, what they like, and just overall their experience.
Faisal Ilyas: Wow, yeah, being a resident of downtown Richmond, I often frequent Davis Market and others. I didn’t actually realize that the groceries that I was getting came from y’all so I really appreciate that.
Dannon Wilson: That’s great!
Analise Adams: Davis Market is fun.
Joseph Real: I have a quick question. You said that you have data on it. Is there any way for us to see that data? Is it published on the Richmond City Health website?
Dannon Wilson: The data isn’t published. It’s particularly sales data. It’s not published on the website. It’s more of a piece that’s reported to the health department and then as far as their organizations that they partner with, some information is given and shared with the CDC and VDH as well just to continue to support and demonstrate the need and the success of our project. Overall sales data we haven’t published publicly to date. Perhaps that’s something that will be done in the future. I just don’t know at this time if that’s something that we will be able to share.
Joseph Real: What do you think are some of the barriers for East End residents which prevent them from living with proper nutrition?
Dannon Wilson: I would definitely say just in the experience in working specifically with the two stores that we have in the East End, it’s definitely… its access. Being able to actually go and get the fresh fruits and vegetables and produce and things you need to meet that basic need. Which is why this project has been very successful and I think it will hopefully continue to make the impact that we’re looking for. We are also bringing in locally grown produce that’s grown using organic processes which is unique in terms of the fact that 1) these stores aren’t stocking produce previously and 2) we’re bringing in something that demonstrates our investment in the community. I think it has to do with the barriers as far as just physical access being able to get to the produce. And I think there’s also in terms of different businesses, perhaps in the different areas, this belief that people in certain communities don’t want healthy foods. In just working with different store owners and just kind of talking through the concept of our program, it’s known that there are some myths and just some beliefs about who eats what and people who eat what live in certain areas. So we hope that the program demonstrates that and hopes to dispel that myth that everybody wants and needs nutritious and whole foods.
Analise Adams: I would say building off that we also see that there is a lot of skills and education and resource barriers. There’s kind of this assumption of, you know, once you have the food that, you can use it. And I think that that’s true in some ways that you wouldn’t believe and untrue in other ways. I think people have more skills and abilities than we generally give them credit for. There is a lot of assumptions like Dannon said that like people don’t want healthy food and I don’t think that’s true. I think people want food that makes them feel good. But I think that there’s always room to kind of help build for any person, no matter where they live, about building on skills and abilities. And so we talked to a lot of people that are used to eating things in certain ways. So they may say “Well I hate squash”. And so it’s really cool to kind of help be a part of that process of like “Well how have you had squash?” and like “What are some other things that you like and how can we make squash fit into that?” We try and use this concept of making your food work for you not making you work for your food. So really kind of building those opportunities to say “You know it’s totally fine if you don’t like something. That’s awesome.” but you have the opportunity to make that educated choice and that you are not making that choice because you never had it or you never had it prepared in a way that you like.
Dannon Wilson: Another small piece of that, I think is also the quality of the produce that people are able to receive in the communities. I’ve got a lot of feedback even sometimes before we even start working with the store. Just serving community members and just discussing the idea of the project. It’s that, well, the produce they have been seeing is just very poor quality. And it’s poor quality for the price they are paying for. So they want a quality product and they want a good costumer experience. Speaking specifically to corner stores, they want a good customer experience when they go into the store and they’re able to buy something that not only is good for you but it looks good. The goal is to make sure that what customers are able to receive is the same quality that you would see in any grocery store because that’s what they deserve.
Joseph Real: What are some of your favorite vegetables that you provide?
Analise Adams: Dannon really likes collard greens. (Laughter)
Dannon Wilson: Yeah, so collard greens is something that’s a staple. It’s one of our main items from the farm and collard greens have been really successful in the corner stores especially around the holidays. We did a couple of in-store events and we actually prepared collard greens and let customers sample them and buy them straight from the table and it went EXTREMELY well. Umm, but….. (laughter)
Analise Adams: Dannon got a little sick of them.
Dannon Wilson: (Laughter) Yeah. I ate so many. I cooked them so many times but they went over really well so I was very happy with that. Community members appreciated it and were impressed and so that was good to me. And then just, in terms of tomatoes, oh my gosh! I can’t stock enough tomatoes in the stores. This is more so for the farm but tomatoes in particular, unions, just the things that people use to cook on a regular basis, those always go extremely well. Then as far as things that are not coming from the farm, we do have a lot of fruits that are top sellers. Pairs and plums. Can’t stock enough. People can’t get enough. So I’m happy. We’re a bit unique with the corner stores because we source from the farm and from a produce supplier. So I really get to see a really good scope of what people want and desire. And it’s fruits AND the vegetables. The collards of course, tomatoes, onions, pairs, plums, you name it. And because we have so many options, we’re even up to the point now where people are buying eggplant, celery, strawberries, watermelon, you name it.
Faisal Ilyas: Yeah actually my introduction to yellow watermelon was through y’all.
Analise Adams: YEAH (laughter) it’s so good. That’s really my favorite (laughter).
Joseph Real: What has been the most satisfying part about working for Shalom Farms?
Dannon: From my standpoint it’s being able to…because I do the ordering, the delivering, the data capture, and the data reporting, seeing the process from beginning to end and really seeing the impact. Working day to day, I see how much I’m stocking in the stores, and I’m like looking at it, but when I really look at the data, and see like I sold 400 plums that month or, you know 200 tomatoes, that’s really where it’s meaningful and then really getting in the stores when I’m delivering and hearing people say thank you. See just their sincere gratitude for what we do and their appreciation for the fact that we try to maintain our marketing and merchandizing and have a standard that we set, and that we maintain and know that they can depend on getting that quality. And also just hearing the costumers are familiar with Shalom Farms. “We know who you all are.” “We’ve heard that you do this.” “We’ve seen your mobile market.” “We heard about this program and that’s why it does this”. That’s where it really means a lot. To really see that people are familiar with our work and that we’re able to do something that helps people meet a basic need that they truly deserve.
Analise Adams: I think for me being in the community. So I’m in the communities most of the week. So it’s fun talking to people. Even working on a farm I underestimate how much of a role vegetables play in people’s lives. And so it’s really cool hearing people’s stories about why these vegetables are important to them. A lot of the times it’s a generational connection right? It’s like, “My mom made squash this way and I’m so excited to make it for my grandkids.” I also teach cooking classes as part of my job and so it’s really cool to kind of hear, I had people make stuffed tomatoes last week, and even though they came in and were like “Girl this is CRAZY” and I’m just like “It’s going to be great. It’s going to be great”. Which I have no idea because I’ve never made the recipe before but they turned out really well. And it was fun to kind of just watch the guy at the end of the table like, eating the like, raw pulpy tomato that was like leftover. So it’s cool to me to see people willing to experiment and willing to come on a crazy ride of playing with food and having fun with it.
Joseph Real: Where do you do the cooking demonstrations?
Analise Adams: Yeah so we do it in a couple of different ways. The Healthy Corner Store program does demonstrations when they launch or doing education at the stores. For our core programs we do somewhere between 5-6 or every week some sort of cooking element. So for some of our programs they meet together and do like a grocery store tour or a cooking demo 5 or 6 times over 12 weeks. We have a new program that kind of grew out of our prescription produce plan called The Kitchen Clinic which is a fun way where we get a whole bunch of people together every week for 12 weeks to kind of troubleshoot a recipe. ‘Cause we know that recipes don’t work the way that they’re written for everyone. So we make the recipe together, take notes, talk about what we like what we didn’t like and kind of adapt the recipe for ourselves. And so that’s where we did stuffed tomatoes last week. We’re doing that in Creighton Court right now and we’ll do it in Mosby Court in the fall. And it’s been a really fun experience of just like, you know, I think there’s this stigma almost of like, well if you can’t make the recipe then it’s your fault that the recipe didn’t turn out. I think a lot of the times it’s not, right? It’s like not my fault that it doesn’t taste good. (Laughter) It can’t be my fault! So kind of looking at new ways to sort of make that recipe taste even better.
Joseph Real: How many people come to these demonstrations?
Analise Adams: So we have about…probably somewhere between 8 and 12 people that will come every week. 8 are like enrolled in the program and then we got people that will drop in every once in a while which is really fun. We’ve had some people in the class been a part of Shalom Farms programs for about 3 years. So it’s been really cool to see kind of, like, how they met these people three years ago and seeing them today. It’s just cool ‘cause we’ve really gotten to know them pretty well. And it’s fun to kind of see how they’ve really made vegetables a priority.
Joseph Real: How can an individual or an organization get involved with Shalom Farms?
Dannon Wilson: In terms of healthy corner stores, it is a unique project in the fact that we’ve partnered directly with the health department. So as far as supporting the farm, we welcome volunteers especially during this time when we are harvesting so many tomatoes. They need so much help on the farm. I always make it a point to tell costumers and even store staff managers when I go in like this is a non-profit farm. We depend on volunteer help and assistance. We encourage them to, if they can, come out to the farm. We understand that the farm is right now located in Goochland so it is a bit of a drive and there isn’t very good transportation to some extent. The knowledge of just saying like if you can come out if you want to in anyway support we welcome you. Providing them with information about just accessing us online. Letting them know what other programs we have and in the city that they are able to support is also a great thing especially in the stores where we are talking to community members that live in the same areas where we have other programs. Like where I am our mobile market has multiple sites. So that’s a good way to, in terms of supporting the farm and it’s endeavors, that’s a great way.
Analise Adams: Yeah just for context we welcome about 4,500 volunteers and visitors every year to our farm. So that’s a great way to kind of come see what we do and get a hands on experience. We always love kind of talking about what we do and so it’s great kind of just connecting with people.
Joseph Real: What’s the age range for that?
Analise Adams: 0 to 120. (Laughter) yup anybody. If they are young kinds we try and say like “Please have an adult”. There’s no rules on age or anything like that. So yeah we love having people out at the farm. Right now we don’t have any city based volunteering opportunities but maybe in the future. We also just encourage people to think about how this applies to your life, right? And so we know that Shalom Farms isn’t going to be a fit for everyone just based on like if you can’t get out to the farm or if this isn’t like something you’re super interested in. But just thinking about the ways that you just see food. A lot of the times a really easy kind of starting point is, we’ve all donated to a food pantry at some point right like outside of Kroger with the box or something like that and so just thinking about like when you cook for your friends or when you cook for your family or when you, you know, donate a can to a food drive, thinking about what you’re donating or serving is kind of a great way to start. A lot of the times we’ll support food pantries with fresh produce and we go in and we see that there’s been so much food that has been like really lovingly donated. And it’s great to have that resource but thinking about for families that are relying on like emergency food resources like food pantries and soup kitchens it can be really hard if what you are eating every day is like a taco kit or spaghetti. Where it’s like those are great things but if that’s where all your nutrition is coming from it can be really high in sodium or really high in added fats added sugars and so just thinking about you know if you’re going to support a food pantry like maybe try donating something with like low sodium or fruit and juice instead of just syrup. And so just like making healthier choices for you or for your family or for like the places you support is kind of an also a great way and we’d be happy to kind of help people kind of think about those choices.
Joseph Real: Is there anything else you would like to say or want the subscribers of The SDHWS blog to know about Shalom Farms?
Dannon Wilson: Since starting here my experience has been really great. It’s just, wonderful to really really be able to see the impact and be able to share it. Because I do wear a lot of hats in my role, I get to just see how all the pieces fit together and how critical each piece is. I think sometimes it’s easy to think, oh well this data matters more than the qualitative piece or the quantitative piece of data matters more than the qualitative piece or getting deliveries done is more important than talking to a costumer in the store and all of those pieces matter. All of it fits together. We have a really great team with the Shalom Farms staff. We have a great farm staff that always works very hard for us and fulfills my request. Sometimes I think beyond what they are able to do. Just amazing things. I think we work very well as a team and support each other throughout the city. Hopefully it’s demonstrated through our work and then how we’re received.
Analise Adams: Another added thing is, we couldn’t do what we do without partners and we are just so thankful for the people that join with us in our mission whether it’s supporting our organization or kind of thinking about how we can make this apply to their work in the city and also just the amazing amount of partners that make what we do possible. Other organizations like the Bon Secours health system, Richmond City Health District, the network of churches and pantries and stuff like that that help kind of distribute our food across the city. The mobile market is made up of partnerships of partner sites that host us every week and we’re so thankful for them. The Richmond Redevelopment Housing Authority (RRHA) and just all of the people that like think what we are doing is cool and support us in that. And that’s really great we couldn’t do it without them.
Joseph Real: One last question. How long do you farm for? What is the time period before the farm closes for the season?
Analise Adams: Absolutely, so we take volunteers from about March through the end of November. We kind of have stuff in the ground all year round but since it gets so cold here things kind of start peter off. Thanksgiving is usually our cut off. That’s when we stop doing programming in the city and stuff like that. Dannon is all year round. (Laughter) the rest of us sort of slow down. From December, January, February we are pretty quiet. We’re just kind of doing some maintenance on staff. It’s a process called “overwintering” and so things sit in the ground over winter so we can harvest them in the spring. So we do some of that. Generally then we’ll pick back up in June is really when we have enough variety to start doing programming again. This year is a little different for us ‘cause we’re moving the farm so I think none of us will slow down. We’ll all be on Dannon’s speed for once!
Dannon Wilson: Full speed yeah!
Analise Adams: But we’re really excited. It’s going to be a lot of fun.
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