Cultivate Charlottesville

Cultivate Charlottesville engages youth and community in building an equitable, sustainable food system through garden-based experiential learning, growing and sharing healthy food, amplifying community leaders, and advocating for food justice. Cultivate Charlottesville aims to empower individuals to create a healthy and equitable food system – personally, in community, and across systems and structures. We do this through an integrated approach from three core programs: City Schoolyard Garden, founded in 2010; Urban Agriculture Collective, which began as the Quality Community Council in 2007; and Food Justice Network, launched in 2015. In 2018 we came together to implement a coordinated approach for amplified impact. At Cultivate Charlottesville, we recognize the role race has played and continues to play in agriculture and education in Charlottesville and the nation. Because we manage garden spaces and work with public school students and community members affected by racial inequities, we commit to building equity in all our work.

While Charlottesville is known for our local food advocates, our food system does not serve everyone equally. Hunger, poverty and diet related health issues are pervasive and fall mostly along racial lines. What does food equity have to do with racial equity? Food equity is the practice and process of considering food as a basic human right. From a human rights perspective, the field of food justice (food equity) challenges us to approach food insecurity through the lens of social justice in order to advance true sustainable change. Taking a food justice approach to food insecurity, therefore means considering food related health disparities across race and class as nonrandom outcomes of discriminatory policies. At Cultivate Charlottesville, we recognize the role racial discrimination has played and continues to play in agriculture, education, and housing in Charlottesville and the nation. Because we manage garden spaces and work with public school students and community members affected by racial inequities, we commit to building racial equity in all our work.