Below is a new draft of the Mission Statement, Guiding Framework, and Overarching Vision of CFAC as of October 2024:
Mission Statement
The mission of the Community Food Access Coalition is to empower the community as active decision-makers by creating a new equitable food system in Indianapolis through education, advocacy, and other means allowing local urban food organizations led or organized by Black/New Afrikan, immigrant, indigenous, and all oppressed people to scale and grow.
Guiding Framework
Our guiding framework, constructed to achieve our initial mission, is:
- To re-frame food policy and activism as a means for lifting all food system participants to a level of self-determination through a truly grassroots, cooperative, and interactive coalition.
- To create sustainable connections with organizations in the food system and support their work by:
- Recognizing and building on previous work accomplished.
- Supporting local food economies by facilitating the creation of food infrastructure in low-access areas where food deserts exist.
- Assisting local entrepreneurs and helping to establish more local retailers through education, grant-writing, and additional funding opportunities.
- Helping to establish a cooperative network for more direct communication between the city and communities.
- Helping create a system of communication to broaden their outreach to the communities they serve.
- To apply a permaculture approach to land management designed around whole-systems thinking to create a harmonious integration of landscape and people to ensure a sustainable and healthy ecosystem.
- To ensure all community members have stable access to affordable, healthy food by:
- Providing education regarding nutrition and overall knowledge of the food process for Black/New Afrikan, immigrant, indigenous, and all oppressed, marginalized, and exploited families in our community.
- Addressing the historic injustices inflicted by our current and past system of food apartheid, which are exacerbated by factors such as inflation and local budget priorities.
- Establishing food hubs in communities that lack local efforts for food access.
- Promoting a production network that encourages small-scale and non-profit farms and a local economy that allows for alternative outlets to operate.
Overarching Vision
CFAC’s work is guided by a vision of self-determination and independence for all oppressed people, especially Black/New Afrikan and indigenous peoples and that is based on human need rather that corporate profit.
Photo: Sharrona Moore, the found of Lawrence Community Gardens, harvests collard greens in the garden’s high tunnel on Feb. 2, 2021. The high tunnel was funded in part through the Natural Resources Conservation Services’ Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP), which Moore signed up for in 2018. The EQIP funding will also be used to plant a hedgerow at the garden located in Lawrence, Indiana. (Indiana NRCS photo by Brandon O’Connor). Public Domain. Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture.