Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation Blog

Transformation Starts From Within: A Story Celebrating Service

I went to law school in California planning to make the world a safer place by incarcerating criminals.  During my first week, I volunteered to teach incarcerated youth about the law, in all honesty, because I wanted to meet “juvenile delinquents.”

This service experience changed my life. 

I realized that underneath the shells of hardened “juvenile delinquents” were kids.  Kids who had grown up believing that by the time they were 18 or 21 they would be in prison or dead.

Kids who over and over again would tell me: “If only.”

• “If only I knew how much trouble I would get into.”
• “If only someone had cared about me.”
• “If only I had been given a chance to do something good for community…I wouldn’t be here.”

I hadn’t expected to care.  But, their stories began to haunt me.  I found myself wishing that someone would listen to their ideas and do something to help.  Then it hit me – I should stop wishing and start doing.

So I asked them, “What would you do to help other kids from ending up here?”  They said: 1. Teach kids about the consequences of crime to help them learn how to make better choices; 2. Connect them with a positive role model to help them be successful; and 3. give them a chance to give back to their communities to help them show it’s not too late for “juvenile delinquents” to change.

These youth wrote letters of recommendations for seed funding to start Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY). Today, over 10 years later, with 100 volunteers and 26 staff, FLY provides the programs they recommended: legal education, mentoring, and leadership training for kids in the juvenile justice system and those at-risk for system involvement.  The kids who helped design FLY were right; their suggestions worked.  FLY effectively helps kids start transforming their lives for less than 1/10 the cost of incarceration.

At FLY, the youth we seek to serve continue to be our greatest teachers, reminding us that those we want to help have the greatest insights into what they need and an incredible capacity to serve as part of the solution.  Personally, I am mindful that being a part of an organization that is all about transformation began, first, with my own.

Christa Gannon is the Founder and Executive Director of Fresh Lifelines for Youth (FLY)

Healthy Markets, Healthy Communities: A Story Celebrating Service

Across the country, many low-income urban and rural communities live without access to the healthy foods that families need to thrive.  These areas where residents face economic and social barriers to affordable, fresh, whole foods are known as “food desserts.”  At the same time, small farmers are struggling to make ends meet.  Wholesome Wave, a Connecticut-based nonprofit, is seeking to nourish neighborhoods and support family farms by directly connecting consumers to fresh foods. 

The Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation had the opportunity to talk with Wholesome Wave.  The organization is built on a series of local partnerships and provides solutions that address the nutritional needs of families and build local markets.  The staff works with farmers markets and organizations to connect a broad base of consumers to farmers.  This three year old organization tells a story of two unlikely partners joining to create a scalable model that addresses the specific needs of people in communities across the country.

In 2008, Michel Nischan, a sustainable food chef, and Gus Schumacher, a former Under Secretary of the USDA, joined to found Wholesome Wave.  A professional chef and restaurateur, Nischan adapted his passion for regional cuisine to meet the strict dietary needs of his young sons who had been diagnosed with diabetes.  He recognized that the difficulty of achieving a healthy diet for his sons must be amplified for someone without the same elevated access to nutritious foods.

Schumacher’s activism around food access began when he was delivering boxes of pears from his family farm.  During the trip, one box fell off the truck.  When Schumacher and his brother returned to pick up the fallen fruit, a woman and two young sons were picking the bruised pears out of the gutter.  When Schumacher asked why she would be collecting this unwanted fruit, the mother explained that her food stamps weren’t enough to buy the fruits and vegetables her family needed.

The Nischan-Schumacher collaboration was the first of many partnerships that support Wholesome Wave.  The organization works with third-party funders to double the purchasing power of SNAP dollars (formerly known as food stamps) when used to buy fresh food at farmers markets.  This partnership incentivizes food assistance recipients to choose healthy options without any extra cost.  Another project is to develop public-private partnerships with businesses, social services, and public spaces to create Healthy Food Hubs.  These are neighborhoods that provide both access to food and information about improving healthy habits.

Since its start in 2008, Wholesome Wave has expanded its programming and reach.  The organization has scaled its services from 12 markets in 4 states to over 160 markets in 20 states this year.  We applaud Wholesome Wave for the inspiring work they do to serve low-income families and local farmers.

How have you connected your passion with serving your community?  Share your story with us.

Divya Kumaraiah is the Policy Assistant to the White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation