Overview
Seeds of Change is the Junior League of Chattanooga’s collaborative effort to eliminate food deserts in Hamilton County.
Food deserts are defined as areas where most residents have low or no access to fresh, healthy, affordable food, and they are a problem that affects more than 60,000 Hamilton County residents.
Community partners
- Chattanooga Area Food Bank
- The Creative Discovery Museum
- Gaining Ground
- The Hamilton County Department of Education
- The Hamilton County Food Coalition
- The Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies
- STEP ONE
- University of Tennessee Extension Service
- YMCA of Greater Chattanooga
How it works
Through a partnership with the Chattanooga Area Food Bank, the YMCA of Greater Chattanooga, and other members of the Hamilton County Food Coalition as well as the Hamilton County Department of Education, Junior League of Chattanooga addresses the issue of food deserts in Hamilton County through advocacy, educational outreach, and the skills, efforts, and enthusiasm of the League’s trained volunteers. As a member of the Hamilton County Food Coalition, JLC’s vision is a community with a thriving, comprehensive, and just local food system, where everyone has access to fresh and healthy food. Their mission is to play a proactive role in creating a healthy sustainable local food economy through education, advocacy, policy development, and collaboration.
What’s the impact?
The Junior League of Chattanooga’s Seeds of Change initiative has already directly impacted more than 4,400 schoolchildren and their families living in those neighborhoods defined as food deserts, as well as additional K-12 students in other public schools participating in League-funded classroom projects designed to develop solutions to the problems of food insecurity and childhood obesity throughout Hamilton County.