On Sept. 29 at ThriveOn King, dozens of community members and leaders got together for a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel event looking into food deserts and struggling farms.
"They're coming to share their experiences and their knowledge about hunger in our community, and ways that we can combat it," said Jim Fitzhenry from the Journal Sentinel.
Around 50 people packed a conference room to figure out solutions. One of them was Jakayla Bridges, who works with the Milwaukee organization Sun-Seeker MKE.
"The work we do is pretty much building out infrastructure," Bridges said. "We teach them about community building, and we teach them about food sovereignty and food justice."
Bridges used to work at the Metro Market downtown and says living on the north side, the inequity is clear. That’s why people need to start growing their own food.
"I just actually got a grant recently where my goal is to build out garden beds and build hydroponic systems in the hood," Bridges said.
The night featured five panelists all coming from different perspectives, from people who organize inside of Milwaukee's central city to the CEO of the Wisconsin Grocers Association.
One of the panelists was Melody McCurtis, deputy director of Metcalfe Park Community Bridges. She talked about how important is it to deal with the core of this problem: systemic racism.
"What we need to be talking about, which is food apartheid," McCurtis said. "If we only start the conversation in food access, we're going to keep creating rapid response and embedded solutions. Corner stores should not be able to sell expired food. Kroger on [North] 35th Street should not be entirely different than Metro Market on the east side or Bay View."
Another panelist was Kyle Koenen from WILL – Wisconsin Institute of Law & Liberty, who defended the reason why some stores close.
"I think it's a little misguided to say that businesses are making decisions based on the bottom line and looking at all the factors in place," he said. "If they were there making money, they would stay open, right?"
Panelist Sister MacCanon Brown, who co-founded MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary, took issue with Koenen’s framing, saying systemic racism and poverty need to be understood.
"It's not right to blame the very people who are hungry," she said.
After about 45 minutes, moderators opened up the event to audience comments and questions. There were a lot of issues people wanted to talk about: from the need to support local farmers' markets, investing in healthy food options and pressuring elected officials to do better.
"It's heartbreaking because [we're] the wealthiest nation on earth, and yet we've got people here gathered to figure out how are we going to be able to feed the people," said Earl Ingram, long-time radio personality.
After the event, people mingled, made connections and talked about how far things have slipped when it comes to food justice.
Anita Garrett from Feeding Wisconsin said it feels like we’ve gone back in time, when discrimination was out in the open.
"Before...everybody kept quiet," Garrett said. "No one talked about racism. Nobody talks about food insecurity. No one talked about these kids are going to bed hungry."
She said after the Sept. 29 event, she’s hopeful change is coming, but she’d be foolish to think all of the closed grocery stores on the north side will re-open because of a panel. But this event was a start.
Support for "Seeking Solutions: Food Access in Milwaukee" is provided by Jon E. Sorenson, Christine Symchych and Jim McNulty, Forage Kitchen, Capuchin Community Services and Antonia Foundation.
