Jeanette Padilla Vega, Food Justice Coalition’s Founder, teaches a cooking class as part of community enrichment programming.
According to Jeanette Padilla Vega, the founder and CEO of the Food Justice Coalition (FJC), humanity’s greatest unifier is food. As she put it, her organization is “trying to change the world one rice bowl at a time.” As I observed her community cooking class and the aromas of her vegan chicken curry filled the air, I believed in her food’s world-changing power.
In the summer, the Salt Lake Valley is ripe with fruit. Through farmers’ markets or programs like the Green Urban Lunch Box, people all over the valley are able to enjoy it. But come winter, that fresh supply dries up.
Katie Lawson’s Salt Lake Canning Co. is working to fill that gap: in 2021 and 2022, the organization canned hundreds of jars of local fruit for distribution to senior citizens, and with the money received from Salt Lake City’s Food Equity Microgrant program, she hopes to do even more this year.
In mid-July, Wasatch Community Gardens is filled to the brim with lush green vegetable plants, vibrant swaths of flowers, and stooping trees laden with fruit. It is mostly organized into neat sections and rows, but a verdant patch on the southeast edge, boasting many different textures and massive sunflowers reaching to the sky, is more freeform.
This is the Growing Traditions section of the garden, designed for the Sabores de Mi Patria program with Artes de Mexico en Utah to represent traditional agricultural practices from Mexico and other parts of Latin America. Sabores de Mi Patria translates to “flavors of my homeland.”
Vanavil Community Garden, one of the 2023 food equity microgrant winners, is located in the Ballpark area and is run by Priya Chidambaram. Priya started the Vanavil Community Garden as a renter; with her landlord’s approval, she transformed the yard into a garden and built a community around it. Since then, Priya has purchased her own house in the Ballpark area and relocated the gardens there.
Priya named the garden ‘Vanavil’ as it means ‘rainbow’ in her native language, Tamil. The name initially came from the desire to grow colorful and diverse crops such as yellow tomatoes and purple carrots. However, Priya notes the name has grown to represent inclusivity as well.
By SLCgreen Intern Emma Johnsonand Staff Jude Westwood
On Salt Lake City’s West Side, near the old water park, lives a sizable herd of goats. The same piece of land also houses sheep, chickens, beehives, and many garden plots filled with a variety of plants.
Although the Farm is managed by Roots, Utah’s first farm-based charter school, fifteen of the goats on the property are owned by the “The New American Goat Club.” The Goat Club is a summer educational program for refugee and immigrant youth interested in learning about goat husbandry. It’s also one of SLCgreen’s 2023 Food Equity Microgrant awardees.
Today Mayor Mendenhall and the Salt Lake City Sustainability Department announced the list of groups that have been awarded funding through the SLC Food Equity Microgrant pilot program, which launched earlier this year.
The new grant program provided $35,000 in total funding to increase residents’ access to fresh, healthy, affordable, and culturally relevant food by supporting community-led projects aligned with the recommendations from the City’s Resident Food Equity Advisors’ 2021 Report. Projects led by and serving those who identify as members of groups that have been most negatively impacted by the food system were prioritized for funding, and accessibility and equity were central to the program’s design and goals.
A year-long effort to create solutions for Black-, Indigenous-, and People of Color- (BIPOC) owned businesses on the Westside of Salt Lake City to pursue rooftop solar and battery storage has received a significant boost thanks to a commitment from American Express.
American Express recently announced a $5 million global commitment to help cities build resiliency and fight climate change ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference which took place in Egypt last week. The Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN) has been awarded $1.2 million to work with three cities, including Salt Lake City, to install solar energy systems in our community.
American Express will provide $325,000 in philanthropic support to complement other incentives and financial strategies to help install solar with optional battery systems for small businesses on the Westside. These systems can lower energy costs for residents and businesses, can be more resilient than standard electric sources during extreme weather, support local clean energy jobs, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
View of the Utah State Capital Building from 500 North.
“I’m thrilled with American Express’ generosity, which will build off the hard work our City team and partners have done to advance solar on our Westside,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. “We have the tools to reduce climate emissions, strengthen community resiliency, and save our businesses and residents money through clean energy, and this collaboration is a perfect demonstration of that.”
by SLCgreen Outreach Coordinator Stephan Sveshnikov
There are over three hundred food policy councils in the U.S., representing towns, cities, tribes, counties, and entire states. Salt Lake City’s Food Policy Council (FPC) is one of three in Utah, with another council in Ogden and one at the state level. Food Policy Councils unite community organizations to help guide policy related to our food systems. They inform local government on everything from food access and urban agriculture to food waste and climate concerns.
Salt Lake City’s Food Policy Council (formerly the Food Policy Task Force) was created in 2009. The group identifies policy and program opportunities and makes recommendation for how to create a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient community food system. Their first project was a sustainable code revision, which made it easier to keep chickens, bees, and grow food in Salt Lake. The FPC has supported the Sustainability Department on a variety of other initiatives over the last decade, including the SLC FruitShare program, the curbside composting program, the Square Kitchen Culinary Incubator, the Local Food Microgrant Fund, and much more. Fourteen members representing various sectors of the food system make up the FPC, from small farmers, to anti-hunger organizations, advocates for immigrant and refugee communities, and representatives of the public health sector.
This year, the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future launched an initiative to help food policy councils around the country confront systemic racism and inequities in their local food systems. Fifteen councils from fifteen different states were selected to participate, including the Salt Lake City FPC! The initiative will help Salt Lake City as our FPC takes its next steps to build a more equitable food system.
Mayor Mendenhall and seven of the inaugural Salt Lake City Resident Food Equity Advisors, with the project consultant.
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Last year, as part of the city’s overall focus on equity and as part of an effort to co-create programs with residents, rather than for them, the Sustainability Department piloted the Resident Food Advisors Program.
Thirteen residents from a diverse set of experiences and backgrounds explored issues in the food system and strategized solutions for their communities, discussing everything from food vouchers to a food leadership academy, and in their final report, published last month, advocated the idea of an “Edible Salt Lake City” and made recommendations for how the city can achieve greater food equity.
We caught up with a few of the Advisors after their recent meeting with Mayor Erin Mendenhall to see how they’re feeling now that the report is out.
Zana Jokic, from Sarajevo, whose work as a medical interpreter has given her a unique perspective on healthy food access among immigrant communities, said she’s been sharing the report with everyone. “I’m so proud of our work,” she said. “I’m passing it around to friends, families, organizations,” anyone and everyone she can think of.
Salt Lake City Mayor Mendenhall’s new 2021-2022 city budget emphasizes financial stability for Salt Lake City, as well as “opportunities for an abundant, transformational, equitable future for all the city’s communities.”
The $350 million budget allocates funds to numerous initiatives and programs that will help Salt Lake City implement recommendations from the Commission on Racial Equity in Policing as well as expanding support for affordable housing. Salt Lake City will continue to prioritize building a sustainable and resilient city for all residents.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, residents have had unprecedented access to local government, connecting with departments more than ever. As SLCgreen moves into the new fiscal year, which begins July 1, we aim to build from this access, inviting more of our community into the decision making process, and working with the community towards greater sustainability and resiliency for all.
The newly approved budget allows Salt Lake City to continue to invest in critical public services, renewable energy projects, air quality, food access, climate equity, and more, which are described below.
Waste and Recycling Rate Increase
The adopted budget contains a rate increase on garbage containers. As you may recall, the Sustainability Department undertook a large public engagement process in late 2019/early 2020 to evaluate residents’ satisfaction with our waste & recycling services, and to seek feedback on how they’d like to see future rate increases occur.
While we do not take lightly the fact that rate increases impact everyone– and some more than others– we want you to know that we have worked hard for years cutting costs and streamlining our operations to forestall the need for a rate increase. However, it has been nearly seven years since we last raised rates. In that time, the cost of doing business has increased– impacting everything from purchasing and maintaining our refuse vehicles, to disposing of garbage at the landfill, to keeping up with the cost of living. For a couple of years, there were also fees associated with processing the City’s recyclables. (So far in 2021, we have begun to make money again on recycling which is great news. We are committed to maintaining a robust program through the ups and downs of the recycling commodity market).
You can visit this page to learn more about the rate increases, the survey, and what to expect. As always, if you have questions or comments, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at slcgreen@slcgov.com
Projects on Energy, Food, Air Quality & More
In our policy division, we are moving forward with some impactful and important projects. Here’s a closer look at some of what’s in store for the Sustainability Department’s Energy & Environment Division:
Advancing Salt Lake City’s Community Renewable Energy Goals
The Community Renewable Energy Program (C-REP), empowered by the Community Renewable Energy Act, H.B. 411, will help Salt Lake City reach its goal of community-wide net-100% renewable electricity. In 2022, Salt Lake City will work with other participating communities to bring Salt Lake City closer to its goal of 100% renewable electricity for the whole community. Learn more on the Utah100 Communities’ website.
