Housing, Community Development & Public Health Committee - Regular Meeting

Just one last announcement. There's a sign up sheet on the side. Awesomely, it's labeled food policy and the other one is labeled general comments. If you'd like to, we will open it up for both. If you'd like to sign in, it'll give you three minutes to talk about that. There are cookies and water outside. Help yourself. It's my birthday. So, I'm super excited. Oh, thank you.

Oh, thank you so much. I think that's about it for announcements. We will get started. I got muscles today. I call to order the Toledo City Council Meeting, Housing and Community Development Committee meeting of Thursday, September 25 at 04:30. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss our food policy. With that, clerk, please call the

roll. Gaddis? Here. Jones? Here. Driscoll? Here.

Hartman? McPherson? Meldon? Williams? Here. Four present.

Thank you. And I see, councilwoman Williams, your lights on. Floor shirts.

So since we're already in the spirit, let's get it started.

That's all I wanted. I walked right into that one. Thank you. Well, this is a timely meeting, and I'll shortly turn it over to Mara. But I just want to say, you know, we came together. This was really a community led thing as we were out in the community. People are like our food system. We need to support it. We need to make sure we're legislating around it. We need to make sure it's feeding and fitting the needs of everyone.

And as we see cuts made at a federal and state level, I couldn't be more pressed as a city to really focus on this and the timing is perfect because we have our food policy manager Mara in place. So hopefully that will help us guide through these rocky waters with the help of our community and Mara really focusing on this so that we can get through this together as a community, right? Because that's the goal. And so with that, I will turn the floor over to you.

All right. Thank you, council member. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Mara Mamani. And as you all know, I'm serving as the city's first food policy manager.

I'd like to thank you all for having me for this special hearing today with a special shout out to Councilmember Jones for prompting this in the first place. And I'd like to thank everybody who came out today. Thank you so much for your support and all you do for food systems in our community. As Council Member Gaddis mentioned, this position was born out of a lot of community advocacy and a growing recognition that the challenges we face around food access did not happen by accident. They were shaped by decades of policy and planning decisions and therefore now require very intentional and coordinated leadership and policy solutions to ensure that every Toledoan has the food they need to live healthy, active lives.

I think it's only right then that we continue to offer opportunities for the community to come together to listen, engage, and very much inform the work of this role. So today, I'm very excited to share kind of what I've been up to these past few months and to offer an opportunity to hear from the community as well. So without further ado, just to share a quick agenda. Today, I'll lay the foundation for my talk by sharing some broad overarching changes to the food policy landscape. And I will definitely lean on community stakeholders to help fill in gaps.

They're working in the food system in a very close way that I might not be doing in my day today. So hearing what they're facing is very important. I'll then dive into a recap of my listening tour findings and the initial engagement I did to help inform this role and influence my priorities in this first year. I will definitely share progress to date and then and ask for support from you all. I think we all have a role to play in this work.

And then I had testimony next, but I think we're going to hear questions from you all first. Is that right? And then we'll open the floor to testimony for whoever would like to speak and share policies impacting you and your work, how you would like to collaborate, any opportunities you all see for working together. So I will dive right Before we dive into what we're hearing locally, I wanted to pause and highlight the bigger backdrop we're working against, the federal and state shifts that have been reshaping the food system across the country and here in Ohio. Two weeks ago, I attended a convening in Columbus with four statewide entities.

I was representing the steering committee of the Ohio Food Policy Network with our chair and very own local rep, Councilmember Jones. And we were joined by the BIPOC Food and Farm Network, the Ohio Ecological Food and Farm Association, and the Ohio Farmers Market Network. The main reason for gathering was to strategize how our groups can coalition build and how we can all show up for one another in these times, these changing times. And I'd just like to quickly share some takeaways from that meeting. So in distilling common challenges, we all agreed our work is being impacted by the many recent federal grant terminations tied to changing political priorities.

One of the grant terminations that is impacting us here in Toledo, for example, is the recent termination of Produce Perks Midwest's $6,000,000 GUSNIP award to support its nutrition incentive programming across the state. In its program, Produce Perks SNAP recipients re receive a $1 to $1 match for EBT shoppers to buy fresh fruits and vegetables. The result is more purchasing power and healthy food access for food insecure households and more direct support for our farmers, which is a win win. I think, yes, since 2018, the program alone has generated over $1,000,000 in our region. Another major shift I wanted to highlight is the major restructuring of the USDA, which is causing great uncertainty, major slowdowns in the processing of support systems for farmers and a loss of critical support for food systems development.

In Ohio alone, we've recently lost over 20% of our USDA employees, which is just a huge loss of institutional knowledge and the support, the networks, the relationships that have taken years to build in our food system. The USDA also terminated its regional food business centers, which were created to help small farms and other food businesses build local infrastructure and help the supply chain around local food distribution. We're also experiencing major changes to the fabric of our food security support systems, SNAP and SNAP Ed, which some of our partners might highlight today, which will ultimately equate to fewer people being able to access benefits and essential nutrition education, both of which are proven to lift people out of poverty, out of food insecurity, and, you know, get more healthy food in the homes of households. Homes of households? What?

You know what I'm saying. But another recent change is the termination of the Ohio CAN program. Some of our farmers in our community have been participating in this. It is basically support for local food banks to connect with local producers, which is definitely a loss for consumers and producers alike. Finally, we're seeing deep cuts to state environmental and agricultural programs.

In Ohio's recent budget, the H2 Ohio program lost 39% of its funding, which is fewer resources dedicated to nutrient runoff, farmland protection, and more environmentally sound farming practices. So when you add all this together, this is just a very small sample of all the recent changes happening. And I think the message and the takeaway from that meeting in Columbus was that we all need to come together, pivot at the local, regional, and state level to address the community needs that are going to be rising. Okay. With that daunting foundation laid, I think it's clear we all have our work cut out for us.

And because my position is new, I really wanted to begin my role with honoring the work that's been done in the community, that's been happening for years, the amazing people in, you know, the emergency food system, our farmers. So I started with a listening tour asking food system stakeholders what barriers they face, what opportunities they see, and how we might all work together So now I would like to and this is going be my SparkNotes version. This is still going to take a second, but I will share all of the insights that I've heard over the first few months. So it's just a drop in the bucket, but I did 56 informal interviews with over 60 stakeholders the first three months of my position. I'm very committed to continuing this listening tour informally, connecting with folks as I go.

But that being said, the findings I did collect are very rich, I've boiled them down into five emerging themes that will continue to evolve with additional input. So the themes are planning and collaboration, food production, food processing, distribution, and markets, that kind of middle space in what I call the food chain, food access and nutrition was which is more of the consumer side, and then sustainability, which I lump together organizational sustainability and environmental sustainability. So going right into it. Planning and collaboration. One of the most common things I heard in this theme in terms of barriers is that there is no comprehensive plan, vision, or structure to support collaborative food systems work, which has resulted in people feeling like they're competing for limited resources and sometimes duplicated efforts.

Many people also shared that they could use support in grant writing and technical assistance and accessing funding opportunities. There's also general outreach fatigue in terms of community engagement work and oftentimes a distrust of the government as a genuine partner in this work. I already touched on needs going up and funds going down, and I have definitely heard that this is already impacting our food providers in the community. Finally, the barriers side, I heard a lot of comments about the often inaccessibility of engagement opportunities in terms of meeting times, locations, needed translation services, and also the just the upfront information people need in terms of how they are able to impact the policy shaping process. On a more uplifting note, on the opportunity side, I heard a lot of enthusiasm about creating more pathways for community planning and policy shaping with an emphasis on farmer input and grassroots leadership, distributive leadership, and creating meaningful seats at the table.

I heard great interest in data sharing and care coordination, especially with entities that are very in touch with the needs of our community, mental health organizations, schools, pantries, senior centers, all of these places that are very in touch with vulnerable populations. Many people want more food focused gatherings and celebrations to celebrate our community's food systems assets, and many people shared an interest in reviving a food policy council for our Greater Toledo region, ensuring cross sector representation and collaboration. Many folks stated that they would they know they would be more eligible for funding opportunities if aligned with other entities, so we have a lot of opportunity to go after grants collaboratively. Finally, people shared that they would really appreciate assistance sharing marketing materials for both food focused events and resources available to the community. Moving on to the production side.

Definitely heard one of the most common barriers in food production is the high tunnel permitting process and people feeling like the regulations are a little too stringent. Know, people need an architectural stamp to get a high tunnel, and that can add thousands of dollars to your tab. Farmers and farm support providers also shared that water access and the start up capital needed to run an operation successfully is a barrier. And many people want to start farming but might not know where to start and could use business planning support and advice in getting a farm number and navigating all of the resources that are available to them. And definitely one of the biggest barriers to getting started is access to land and land tenure.

Emphasis on land tenure. People want ownership of their land. And also related fears were shared about gentrification and, you know, as neighborhoods develop, making sure people are able to stay and, you know, take advantage of all of the investment that is happening. I also heard concerns about the aging farming population in our region and a lack of succession planning for the next generation of farmers, as well as a great concern over soil contamination and the huge cost of remediation. And finally, I heard barriers related to farm justice both in terms of, you know, a very long discriminatory history of who has access to resources as well as the current political climate and farm workers knowing their rights.

As far as opportunities that were shared, many people I spoke with are very intrigued and excited about vacant lot and building reclamation, which I am as well. Many of the same people are interested in exploring innovative farm models like forest food forests and hydroponics and aquaponics. Some folks shared opportunities for farmer cooperation and maybe going after your farm inputs together as a group to cut down on costs, you know, as well as expanded opportunities for farmer education and experiential learning like, you know, experiential learning at community hubs where people are already convening, schools, libraries, parks. Finally, people shared that fiscal support for food production in the form of grant opportunities and potential potential tax incentives would be very helpful and much appreciated as people try to, you know, either start or expand current operations. In terms of food processing, distribution, and establishing markets, heard, you know, this middle space as I mentioned, one barrier I heard is related to the technology and regulations related to setting up retail models.

For example, navigating the system for accepting SNAP in your store and getting set up with a point of sale system for processing payments. Also heard that some farmers don't know how to price their produce appropriately, and many struggle with the scale and certifications needed to sell to larger stores. Oftentimes, there's a lack of needed infrastructure and workforce capacity for food processing and related to fueling that infrastructure, utility costs can be through the roof if you're trying to run, you know, a walk in cooler or other, you know, infrastructure. Some farmers and food operations struggle with transportation and logistics, and I heard more than once on the tour. I heard this actually quite a few times that we're not facing a food shortage issue.

We're facing a distribution issue. Finally, despite the, you know, great desire for full service grocery stores in neighborhoods, many of our neighborhoods are left without that asset for people to meet their food needs. On the opportunity side, I heard a lot of interest in exploring alternative retail models to fill the grocery store gap, models like cooperatives and farm stops, a model that is newer and entails farmers pairing up with brick and mortar locations to offer their goods on consignment. We also have an interest in pursuing more community food systems infrastructure to support processing and farmer aggregation. Many people mentioned the potential of a food hub with several mentioning the potential of the Erie Street hub as something that could help fill critical gaps in the food system.

Also a lot of opportunity around shared kitchens and support for food entrepreneurs with things like helping with business planning, technology support and good agricultural practices and other food safety certifications. Also support for our local and regional farmers via institutional purchasing, things like farm to school support and selling to hospitals in venues like local restaurants. I think we have in in many of these categories, I'll touch on the workforce development opportunity to fill needs in food processing and distribution with training programs for both youth and adults. And finally, there was a lot of excitement around food rescue opportunities, something that I am learning more about and very excited about. And, you know, opportunities to process maybe that imperfect produce that you have a surplus of through gleaning on farms and turning that into value added goods.

I was introduced to the farm to freezer model, which is exciting and something to look into. So this next category is food access and nutrition. This is more of the consumer side in accessing and preparing food. Many people shared struggles related to having reliable access to not only quality produce but and foods but foods that are culturally relevant with concerns a lot of concerns actually around, you know, is this safe for me? Is this covered in pesticides?

Related to this is also the struggle of stocking pantries with a constant supply of produce options. I heard that in general, people want to eat healthy diets, but they may not know where to start and how to prepare fresh produce and or they may not have the kitchen equipment to do so. I heard concerns of people not knowing how to navigate systems like SNAP, and there's a growing population of people who may identify as middle class who are increasingly needing to visit emergency food sources, and they may not know how to navigate those systems. In addition, neighborhood safety poses an additional barrier to walking to food sources. I heard that from several folks.

And a general lack of neighborhood investment leaves gaps in food resources, as I touched on. Providers of nutrition education resources shared barriers related to reaching target populations who face time, transportation, child care, and other constraints. And finally, I heard the desire to change the overall narrative around food insecurity. Shifting, putting the blame on the individual and their own agency to shifting that to just a broad recognition that these are systemic inequities that need systemic approaches if we're going to come up with solutions. So on the opportunity side, I heard that there is much room for active transportation planning in collaboration with transit authorities and models like mobile pantries and delivery options.

There is also an emphasis I heard on using community hubs, places where people already convene to carry out food distribution, which I know is already happening in many places, but also nutrition programming. Paired with this, we have the opportunity prescriptions if we can sustain that essential program and other incentive programs like senior coupons. And like other categories, workforce development came up in that increased job security leads to increased food security and needing to ensure that adults, parents, youth have access to education and training they need to earn a living wage. I also heard the desire for community ownership models like community land trusts to keep residents rooted and well circulating in their own neighborhoods. And finally, there's a great opportunity around food rescue, as I mentioned, to help address the increasing need and decreasing resources for food supplies.

Finally, sustainability, the last theme, which I had mentioned encompasses both environmental and organizational sustainability. On the barrier side, I heard a concern of losing prime regional farmland to development pressures and suburban sprawl, you know, which definitely impacts our long term ability to supply our food needs. I also heard food businesses discuss the huge amount of packaging waste that comes with running an operation and the desire to cut down on that waste. People also shared concerns about environmental degradation in the form of soil erosion, which leads to nutrient runoff and algal blooms as well as flooding issues. Think about Lake Erie, our precious water source.

We need to protect it. Many people also shared that sustainability and green infrastructure projects sometimes have a maintenance issue with limited organizational and city capacity to keep up initiatives once they're started. Finally, on this side, many shared burnout related to constantly relying on grant funding to keep operations going. In terms of opportunities, I heard an interest in composting with models available at multiple scales, including at the household level, at the institutional level, and at the city level with our new composting pilot program. People were very optimistic that environmental and sustainability education with incentives can lead to more sustainable activities and outcomes.

Some people also shared ideas for program colocation to get over that resource limitation. For example, if one organization has a shared kitchen and another has a staff with a curriculum maybe team up rather than each entity having to do everything on their own. And then finally, I heard the opportunity for food rescue not only to help me increase food needs, but also to reduce the amount of waste going into the landfill. Alright. Thank you for hanging with me.

I said that was SparkNotes, but that took a while. So now I'd like to shift to share out on some of the progress I've made to date in addressing all these needs and some of the things I was tasked with coming into this job. So first, hearing the great need and desire in the community for collaboration and the lack of a structure to do so reinforced a gap I came in knowing about, which is that our region does not have council. There are over 300 food policy councils in The US, the first one dating back thirty years, and these entities are proven to result in more food initiatives, outcomes, funding, etcetera. So creating some sort of food policy council is in my job description.

In the summer, I came across an RFP for the USDA Regional Food Systems Partnership grant. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to help with resources to get this going. So with the help of Laura Schafer, our grants coordinator, I put together a proposal requesting funds to lead what would be a big community engagement initiative to help co create the structure, governance, and representation of a future of what I'm calling the Greater Toledo Food Policy Council, hoping to have not just a city focus but some regional seats as well to bring that perspective, which I believe is crucial. So I aligned community partners and got some commitments to form a leadership team that would include the health department, United Way of Greater Toledo, and Team ACOG to bring their regional planning expertise. You know?

And we also built in money for stipends to build out a steering committee where we would pay people for their time to help come up with a model that is tailored to Toledo. So overall, I think this is something this this initiative is top of mind for me, and I think it's going to help us navigate a lot of the challenges we're facing. I also knew coming in that I would have to perform a food policy audit to assess what current policies and programs our community has related to food. So in preparation, I researched what tools are available for a food policy audit. And I came across CARET, which is Community and Agricultural Resilience Audit Tool.

This is out of the North American Food Systems Network. It was developed by a team of researchers, people who know the food system very well. And I chose this as the as the audit tool to go with. It's a free open platform where you can collaborate with your team. You can build an audit team, which I have. And you use their seven themes and 101 indicators to basically give you a baseline report of where we're at and what gaps exist. They had the opportunity to apply for and join a twenty twenty five national cohort. So I applied and got in. And Toledo is now one of 12 communities across The U. S.

Using this tool with the guidance of a national research team. Yeah. So I've been lucky to like I mentioned, some folks are helping me out. I just want to shout out Benita Robinson in my department, who just joined us. She's going to be sharing the audit results and being a conduit to community groups. Joe Bunge at United Way, Amy Abodili at the health department. And soon, we're going to be onboarding Caleb Brown, who's the new manager at the Ebyte Center. Very happy to know him and want to collaborate with us on this. So hoping to have a report to share out later this fall. And if anyone is interested in offering feedback, collaborating in any way, my info is going to be my contact information will be on the last slide.

And please, please reach out. One of the things I am probably most proud of in my time and I heard this was going to be quite the challenge, and it has been, but I've collaborated with Plan Commission and Building inspection to ease the permitting process for urban agricultural structures. We were able to land on some new protocol for both getting a special use permit if you need one, if you're in a residential district. So we will now waive the $600 fee and work with you on a basic site plan for your high tunnel where it will be placed. I've also developed a new certificate of zoning compliance form that you will now fill out at the plan commission.

So I mentioned the need architectural drawings. But now if you are solely going to use the structure for urban agriculture, solely for production, you can you're now exempt from the Ohio building or our building permit process. So that is going to hopefully shave off couple thousand from your final tab for your buildings. I'd like to thank all the farmers who offered feedback in this process and definitely to Plan Commission and Building Inspection for being willing to partner and make it easier for urban farmers. To address the other barriers to local food production, including processing, distribution, and market establishment, I recently drafted a proposal and requested funds from the city's budget to support a new urban ag micro grant program.

My aim was to make the grant as flexible and low burden as possible with micro grant awards ranging from $1,000 to $3,000 to be used for a wide array of eligible categories, everything from farm infrastructure, tools, inputs, even labor, storage and packaging equipment, and even if you want to focus your efforts and funds on community engagement and educational material. Also hoping to keep reporting as simple as possible. I know a lot of folks are already navigating huge grant reporting duties. So I'd like to just capture some narrative, maybe some pictures. How did you use the funds to further your operation?

What great work are you doing in the community? Just to shout out our farmers and food processors and distributors. Yeah. So I'm hoping to roll this out in conjunction with the Farm a Lot program, which is launching this fall. So the grant program will probably we're we're requesting it in in the 2026 budget. So hopefully, we can get this rolling early spring in time for growing season. And, yeah, one initiative related

to this is I'd like

to make a one stop shop on my city web page just to, you know, if folks don't know where to start, do you need access to land? Here's a link to the farm a lot program. Here's this grant opportunity, etcetera, more resources. In terms of healthy retail, I am also proud to share that I completed the Dollar Store study that I conducted with Plant Commission, which rolled over into this position. And we now have new spacing requirements to stop the proliferation of this retail model and make the playing field more even for alternative retail, hoping to see more independent grocers as a result of this.

I did a literature review and found that Dollar Stores do indeed add to the food access issue and that two dollar stores moving into a two mile radius is directly linked to one independent grocer going out of business. So this felt extremely urgent, especially with all of the Rite Aid's closed throughout the city. It would be very minimal effort to just turn that into a dollar store with very little permitting and planning commission review needed. So this puts a cap on that. And now I'm working with Esther at the planning commission on the healthy food overlay, which will complement this study.

And we're hoping to offer a package of zoning and economic development incentives to promote the healthy retail we'd like to see. This is a map pictured here of the USDA's Food Access Research Atlas. It shows they call food desert areas low access, low income areas. They define and measure those a certain way. And we will likely draw on this database as well as vehicle ownership to identify the areas of highest need.

So more of that to come. I'm very excited. We have a lot of community stakeholders who are ready to collaborate on this and offer feedback, folks like Reverend Perryman at United Passengers for Social Empowerment, George Thomas at Fair Housing Center, Jennifer Martinez at Able, and then anyone else who is wanting to give feedback will be welcome too. Finally, related to promoting more healthy retail, I'm very excited to share that one of my goals coming into this was partnering with University of Toledo. And I am actually working with a student group right now that's helping me with some research.

I'm working with Olivia Summon's Honors Community Engagement class who will be helping explore alternative retail models. So what are the best practices for starting a cooperative in your neighborhood? What are examples of success in other cities? We're looking at Gen City Market in Dayton, Argus Farm Stop in Ann Arbor. What the things that made them successful to begin with?

And then how did the city support through zoning and economic development incentives? So I know that what they find is really going to help Esther and I hone the healthy food overlay and lay groundwork for potential initiatives in our communities. And I already heard some community interest in hearing findings through some sort of presentation. So I just wanted to quickly go over all the other pots on the stove. There are many.

First, I wanted to draw the overlap with sustainability initiatives. I've been acting as a member on the sustainability commission, participating in EcoFest. And I was able to offer Dana Rising, our sustainability manager, food related input for the new climate action plan. I've also been working to support the Healthy Small Market pilot program at the health department that the health department is leading. And shout out to Stephanie Baltes and Amy Evadilli for all the work they've done around assisting five small store owners in getting whatever equipment they need, the technology set up, the infrastructure to support the provision of more healthy foods.

I definitely think this is part of the solution, and it will be launching in October and hoping to help with promotion and identification of funding to continue and expand the program. Also excited to be partnering and brainstorming with Stephanie Covington, our Commissioner of Educational Engagement and Workforce Development. She's already just blazing the trail for partnering with urban farmers and folks in the food system space. She already has an initiative with Sonya who runs Urban Holistics Injunction in the Toledo Prep Academy and showing that there are so many jobs to be created and expanded within the food system. So we're plotting how can we expand these efforts.

Another focus that is top of mind is soil testing resources to ensure people are farming safely. I recently interviewed and have formed a relationship with professor John Farber at BGSU. He studies soil and we're discussing, you know, how might his students help us with systematic testing of lots perhaps in the farm a lot program. So I'd I'd like to identify some funds to help make that partnership happen. I would also like to I talked about food rescue opportunities.

Very excited, as I mentioned. So some folks are already doing this, like Pathway Inc. And UT are already partnering around their senior feeding program, so how to assist them in their efforts. I also recently interviewed the founder of a food rescue app in Seattle called Eat Happy Now, which connects people who have surplus food with people who need it. She was excited in wanting to explore a pilot in Toledo.

So might we find funds for that? Another initiative on my director's list of priorities is drawing a connection between nutrition education and youth who have been exposed to lead lead poisoning. So I'll be teaming up. There's Monica Smith in my office who does a lot of work around the lead ordinance. And there's a task force hosting an educational event next month.

And they asked if I would tag onto that and share some resources related to nutrition and what to eat if you have been exposed to lead. And further than that, where can I access that fresh produce that I might need and what incentives are available to help me get that produce? Next, to get at the need to help partners with marketing efforts, my department is going to start hosting a quarterly newsletter. So I'll be excited to add a food component and help spread the word on any programming and resources happening in the community. More on this to come.

I will reach out to, you know, folks here and hopefully offer a way for people to submit items that they'd like to broadcast through city channels. Also, I want to continue my coalition building work. I mentioned the sustainability commission. There's also the farmer meetups happening at Lucas Oil and Water that I've been going to. I was very excited to be invited to the CDC conference in Dayton last week with the reinvest team, reinvest leader team.

Excited about collaborating with Amelia and her team of community leaders. I also want to continue my advocacy and policy work with the Ohio Food Policy Network and hopefully be a conduit between local and state efforts. What asks can we make of our representatives? How can we tag team our asks from this from every vantage point we have? Other than that, I just wanna say that I am very open to other opportunities that come along.

And if anybody has ideas, please reach out and we can get together. So given all of those initiatives, I now want to make an ask of counsel for support in these endeavors. I am very grateful that you all supported the creation of this position and just ask for continued investment in food policy initiatives. So I will share three asks of support. I ask that you all advocate and honor the Department of Housing and Community Development's budget request, which includes funding for community catalyst projects, including food policy initiatives.

I ask for support in the creation of the Food Policy Council that relates back to the first ask is that funding. Also, thinking about who might represent the city on this council. Whether or not it is hosted within the government, we will need city leadership and representation. So not looking at you, Council Member Jones, but I know this is your area of expertise. So, you know, having having that insight on the council, I think, would be really, really valuable.

And then finally, I would like to ask the mayor and have all of your support in asking him to sign on to the Milan Urban Food Policy Pact. This is a list of best practices. I believe there are 37 recommendations just recognizing that the majority of our global population is in cities and that we must take action to address the food needs that we have in a sustainable manner. So this is a nonbinding voluntary thing that we can do, but it is, I think, a leverage tool. And I will share that Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland are all committed to the pact.

So I think it would be strength in numbers. And it'd be a really cool thing for Ohio to be able to say, we're all part of this network and to be able to swap stories and best practices. So those are my asks. Thank you for your consideration. And please let me know what questions you might have. So actually, next on the docket, had open testimony. But we're going to swap that. And I will now take any questions from counsel. And then we'll be able to open the floor up to folks. So thank you.

Thank you. That was very thorough and a lot of information. You are a busy bee.

That's right.

Think we had Councilman Driscoll, you were first.

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Mara, for this presentation. I think you and I got together just before you started this job and you told me you said that this was your dream job. And boy, oh boy, it shows in the work that you've done so far and everything you've got planned for the future. So thanks for what you've done. You've you've are off to an excellent start. I I have two questions. One about the grant that you said you guys applied for to create the Food Policy Council. Sure. What's the status of that application? When do we know?

I believe Laura said we might hear back in October.

Okay.

So there was no definitive date, but I think we're expecting to hear in October.

And the source of the grant is?

The USDA Agricultural Marketing Service. Yes. It it's the Regional Food Systems Partnership Grant.

What's the like, what was the request for? How much?

The request was about $200,000 The city would match about $67,000 of that. And we would support a variety of actions. We would hire a consultant to help me with the leadership team. I actually have a consultant in mind. I don't know if anyone is familiar with Kip Holley, but he does amazing food advocacy work.

And he we were colleagues at the Kirwan Institute in Columbus, and he has consulted with Johns Hopkins on food policy councils. And I called him up just to, you know, pick his brain on would this be interesting work. And not that he you know, not that anything is set in stone yet, but he said that would be very you know, he would be interested. So, yeah, hoping to work with him. And then we would embed a part time position within the health department to help lead efforts.

Our leadership team, as I mentioned, would be representation from United Way and team ACOG as regional actors in the food system. And then like I said, we would establish a steering committee of folks with stipends available for people who might need compensation for their time. And then the goal would be to just engage as many people as possible to co create this.

If we're unsuccessful in the application, is this a doable thing for us?

I talked to Director Clemens about that. She said there might still be support for hiring a consultant and I would still I would lead the efforts on a collaborative approach, you know, to do a lot of community engagement and help form this.

Okay, great. Shifting gears a little bit, going back to the study that you completed about dollar stores. I had a professor in grad school, an economics professor, he always talked about if if something has a negative externality, the best thing you can do in economics isn't to regulate it, it's to tax it. And and then you use the proceeds from the tax to address the negative externality. So the reason I bring that up is it was clear in your study when I read that one of the negative externalities that's associated with dollar stores is that there's it's a proliferation of non healthy food options which ultimately affects our community, affects people who live here.

It seems to me we ought to I know that you have they're required to get a special use permit. Correct?

No. Are they? No. I I oh gosh. It's been so long. My planter brain is dusty.

They're not. No. That's where my head went. And most of the time in our planning and building inspection, use that money to fund the department, but it seems to me that if we know that the negative externality of dollar stores, the proliferation of dollar stores is the lack of access to healthy foods, it should fund the work that you're doing. And think that's something we ought to entertain. I know I mean, I know the business community doesn't necessarily wanna add another SUP onto our

You're saying make it a special use and use the fee to fund That's

exactly right. Yeah. That's exactly what I'm thinking.

Interesting. I as it stands with the spacing requirements, the two mile spacing requirements, the city is pretty much maxed out. Mhmm. The loophole would be if you become a WIC vendor, you would be able to get around that. So I guess we're willing to work with retail spaces if they rise to the occasion of offering quality and quantity produce. But, yeah, I guess the route you're talking about is not I think we did want to avoid another special use permit where every report is the same and that's just adding a lot of work for plan commission folks who could spend the time elsewhere.

No doubt. Something to think about though, talk about a revenue source to fund the work that you're doing, dissimilar from how we have 1% for the environment that funds sustainability coordinator's job or the work of that position. Yeah, we've got to make sure that we're still fund there's you need a funding source and we got to figure out as a council how we do that. But again, thanks for your work. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you. Before I get to Doctor. Jones, just want to you had mentioned the lead testing with the BGSU. I know that we are going to make sure that there is funding in the next budget cycle for a vacant lot reusability study. That might be a good partnership between that. If we're already looking at how we're reusing the lots, maybe we can make sure that there's funding to test the lots so we can say which ones are farmable and which ones aren't.

That'd be great. The professor shared that something that really alarmed me was even if you're farming in a raised bed, the earthworms can bring the lead up like a meter high in the soil. So you might think you're, you know, safe, but you might not be. Their solution was to use the old Sanborn map files, which I think I shared at the last hearing, show the old footprint of the home. And then you use that to calculate where the leaching would have happened of lead paint and then to strategically soil test in other areas, and that's where you should put your raised beds. So having a student group go through a handful of farm a lot or pair up with this vacant lot study I think could be really beneficial for folks.

Yeah. That's low key terrifying. Doctor. Right.

Definitely. Doctor. Jones. I know.

Well, first of all, I am just so excited. Just this work, I've been talking about this for I don't even know how long. It's just been the longest time and we are finally getting on it as far as regulation and legislation and programs and it's just the possibilities and opportunities are just out there. I commend you on all the work for sticking with it, for just getting this information. It sheds some other light as far as the gaps within our food system.

So that's kind of where I'm at as far as like the distribution and the production. I think we got the growing down. We still have some things in order to you know as far as like zoning and then you know lead. So I think we got that down but now it's okay where is this food going? And so I'm looking forward to really developing that system and seeing what type of partners are out there or other models that are out there in order to get the food to where it needs to be.

My particular question though would be for the workforce development opportunities. I know that doctor Covington, she is working with youth and they're working with Sonya with learning skills and things of that nature. I know TPS is trying to also build up the urban ag as far as what happens after the learning. Have you came across any other information as far as okay once they're done with this program, now what? And how do they continue that education? I'm aware of CSU, they have like a four year degree with sustainable agriculture. So have you heard of anything developing in terms of like education, training regarding just urban ag in general with your talks?

Yeah. I know Michelle Wallace is running the Fast Track Farmer program, which she likes to partner with nonprofit farms that have a farm manager, she said, just because there's more capacity to lead programming. I took advantage and did the master urban farmer training years ago at Toledo Grows. And so I'm I want to reach out to Amy Stone and see is that going to be available in the future. I know doctor Covington is very focused on how can we offer credit and, you know, career pathways that get you somewhere.

Right. Right. We went to well, I went to a rotary meeting as a guest and was introduced to this woman who runs I think it's called Jill of All Trades at Owens.

I've heard of that.

Heard of that. Mhmm. And I was wondering if there was a way to partner with her to offer an urban ag, you know, lens to that program. I think that might be an opportunity to explore. I was approached by Lorenzo who runs the metro parks in the downtown area recently, and he's really interested in an urban ag element at some of the parks.

And we're just in early exploratory phase. Is set in stone yet. We're just talking. But I was wondering, is there a way to either partner with him on some sort of experiential learning, workforce development situation. And again, with the farm a lot program and the vacant lot reclamation, is there room to kind of segue training programs into land opportunities? So a lot of ideas right now, but I would like to yeah, I'd love to hear your thoughts too.

Because I think that it will be helpful to start thinking of that connectivity now. So who where would they fall on that spectrum? So if you have TPS, they're doing education, the initial exposure, and then once they're graduated per se, what do they get? I've heard that through the farm lab program, if you've went through this TPS program, you could, there's a possibility of being awarded land, but then land has to be prepared and then also you would need a business plan. So where is like the urban ag business track, development track?

Because what I don't want to happen is doing all this work and you know really growing this workforce but then they can't evolve. They're just staying right where they are really maintaining themselves, sustaining themselves but there's no evolution when it comes to that. And also thinking of the technology piece because of the land availability, what are some other ways to grow? So I know we have hydroponic, aquaponics, all of that, but that is like high-tech technology. So do we have training for those who are interested in that?

It's still urban ag, but where can you get that exposure as well? So I would definitely start thinking what is after the harvest basically. How are we doing that? Where's the workforce come from? Where's the training coming from? And just how the distribution part of it. And I'm very interested in learning more about the gleaning process and just food waste and how we can really do that too.

Some folks in the audience actually, we were talking about gleaning right before this.

Yes. Good. Good. So I'm glad that that is

Folks that are a good part of church are interested and that's definitely a lot of produce to take advantage of. But speaking to your point of kind of business training, I one of the folks that I talked with in my early days was Lindsey Williams at the library and she offers a lot of small business resources. And I was wondering if there was a way to bring in a very seasoned farmer who could share how do I how do I, you know, get started. And then thinking not only vacant lot reclamation within the city, but I mentioned the aging farmer population in our surrounding regions. So I know the Ohio Ecological Food and Pharmacy Association has a land link program Mhmm.

Slash platform. I've scoped it out. There are no farms in Northwest Ohio. So how to expand that program and maybe funnel people learning to farm into regional farming opportunities as well. So thank you. Thank you for all those insights and questions to look into.

And I'm gonna make it an initiative of mine in order to get these churches involved. As far as potential sites for urban ag, there is a black church food network that started in Baltimore and they are getting churches involved in growing, using their land for that and then that would situate the access problem because they're in the neighborhoods. Right. So that's a little personal project I'm about to take on, but we can talk definitely more about that.

Yeah. Have you one of the things that came across in the listening tour is Sacred Grounds. Yep. To Marilyn before, who used to be at the city and just all the amazing gardening work already happening at her church and other churches. So I wonder if there's kind of a collaboration that could happen Yeah.

We, yeah, I'm very familiar with Sacred Grounds, used to do a little something for them a few years back. So we can definitely get some conversation going because they're everywhere. So they can definitely be an asset to this food system issue as well too.

Thank you. I'll check out the Baltimore group too.

Yeah, and probably get them to come and talk. There we go. Alright, thank you. Thank you.

You. Councilwoman Williams? Thank you, chair. Thank you, Mara. This was great.

I have to play a little devil's advocate because I'm a district representative here, and I am thinking of my residents and I'll precursor this. I actually just adopted three lots behind my child care center that I'll be doing some raised bed urban ag, hopefully with Sonia and Urban Holistics soon. But I wanna make sure that we don't have a mess. So we I wanna hear what type of regulations we'll have on who's doing this work and how they're educated to keep it from turning into a mess. So for instance, district with the ARPA dollars, we had a thousand lots a thousand homes that we wanted to we wanted to have demo by 2026.

And in District 4, I have 638 of those homes. We also have groundhogs, rodents, fox, deer floating around everywhere in Central City. I wanna know what regulations on these lots that we try to, get the community involved with to make them great. Don't turn into a mess. I e, I would I would like to see some type of regulation or some follow-up on who acquire these lots and who's maintaining these lots so that we don't have a pile of mess in 638 lots for instance.

Because it's a great idea to start with, but what's the follow through? Yeah. You understand what I mean?

I hear you. And I think I'd be cautious about adding more regulations for farmers and urban ag just because, but like but working with farmers, if if there is a code violation of some sort, how can we work together to address whatever the concern may be? I think with the healthy food overlay, we're going have a chance to review our zoning code and see what might not be working for farmers and how we can address that through the code. Also, quick note, I will push back also. I've heard some concerns about the demo process and just making sure that that's not adding to the soil contamination issues

in our efforts. Is meeting with neighborhoods and working through that. But I'll give a for instance of what I'm talking about. And Lisa, deputy the interim director will know what I'm talking about. So anybody can build can try to build on a lot. You know, you get a lot, get the permits, start building, and then nothing happens. So across the street from my childcare center, there's half of a building, and I'm trying to correlate this the best of my knowledge. Mhmm. There's a building that has been attempted to be built for four years.

Mhmm.

And it's not built. It's just some two by fours piling up, built up, and nothing has happened. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. Don't wanna put more regulations.

I wanna make sure that they're following through with what they start with, and it becomes the greatness that we want and the produce what we wanted to, and our neighborhoods are not just having a whole bunch of half things done. That's what I'm asking. No adding regulations, just what regulations are we making sure that we have that follow through because the neighborhoods that I serve are ready is dealing with the vacant lots or dilapidated houses or half built garages. Right. You know, just making sure we have that follow through is something that I I am concerned about.

Gotta throw that in there. We have all the positivity and the momentum to do this, but I wanna make sure that we are looking at the other side of this. What if the follow what it what do what are we doing with that follow through? That's all I'm asking.

I hear yes. Thank you. Because I don't wanna mess. Right. Right.

I I think that is all the more reason to invest in urban agriculture and to ensure farmers have the resources they need to be successful in their farm plans. Or if they need help with the planning process or where to start going back to the one stop shop of resources, connecting them with more seasoned farmers. Basically, how can we collaborate to make sure everyone has what they need to run a successful operation? Because, yes, neighbors shouldn't need to look at something unsightly or something that's decreasing neighborhood value or whatever. I think working with farmers to ensure that they're able to improve their neighborhoods and their sites how they want to. Yep. Yes. Thank you.

Yeah. I think that's a great point, councilwoman Williams. I know in my district as well, I think there needs to be support and succession plans for these plots because there are several abandoned neighborhood why have neighborhood gardens that have been started on lots and then abandoned?

Yeah. That goes back to the maintenance capacity and and whatnot. I think

I've

been thinking about, and I think I was talking with a a farm friend yesterday about maybe we have a farm focus group sometime soon, you know, hearing from farmers and and what they need and especially related to the healthy food overlay, how we support them?

Yeah. That's great. And there's one more thing I wanted to bring up. I know that we, Councilman Driscoll, had brought up making sure you're funded, how are we going to fund you? But we've also put aside ARPA funding. You had recently mentioned the health department is here with their healthy food carryout food system, which is amazing. But we had also put money aside for grocery store and for the Erie Street Hub Market hub. Is there anything you could update us on to make sure that we're utilizing that dollars as the time is ticking? We don't want to give any of that money back to the federal government if you don't I have

am working with director Clemens to identify a source for those funds. I think they're predevelopment funds, as you mentioned, for a grocery store. We are in communication with one small market about potential upgrades we could use a portion of that funding for. As far as the Erie Street Hub goes, I think you mentioned inviting me into conversation. I did hear from folks related to the project that there might be a hold up in terms of funding. So I would like to get closer to that project myself. So any connections there would be helpful.

Yeah. I just wanna make sure that this is such a hot topic

to think our the clock is ticking too.

Yeah. Let's keep that keep that money and utilize it

Thank you. Yep. I'll make a note to follow-up with director Clemens. I think she's out right now, but that'll be something to follow-up with you on.

Thank you.

Yep. And then we're gonna move to open testimony. How would you like to do this? Mara, would you do you want me to pull the list, or do you have a list of people in mind?

Do want

a free for all?

I would say do you guys prefer the list method? Free for all. What?

I'm I'm up for list. Corn.

We can just pop more of popcorn

around the list and just check folks off. I don't want to, yeah, be too stringent on who goes first or whatnot. I'd like to thank everybody in advance, too, who is hoping to speak today. Thank you for coming out.

Okay. Thank you. Okay. So just some okay. Just some basic rules. Our clerk will call up your name because I am terrible at reading handwriting and we will have a three minutes for you to read your testimony or say whatever you'd like in the vein of our food policy. There'll be clocks here and up here to watch your time. So with that.

Is that too ominous, like doing the popcorn? Should people who are speaking just come up to the front and volunteer come up as they wish? I don't know. Okay.

And if you could come to the podium. Okay.

We can sit

here and speak into the mic because we want to make sure that everybody hears this from this point on. Okay.

All right. Looks like first we have Stephanie Baltaz.

Welcome down. If you could just introduce yourself. Good

evening, council members. My name is Stephanie Baltas, and I'm a dietitian at the Toledo Lucas County Health Department who works part time in our WIC program and also on the Healthy Food Small Market pilot program. Thank you and Mara for the opportunity to share the progress on the two initiatives that are working hand in hand to improve healthy food access in Toledo, the Healthy Foods Mall Market pilot program and the produce perks, which Mara had mentioned. Six months ago, if a family in the 43608 ZIP code wanted to buy fresh produce with their SNAP benefits, travel or go without. Today, they can walk to Gold Star Market on the Green Street and find fresh fruits, vegetables, and refrigerated healthy food items right in their neighborhood.

Tonight, I want to share how the City of Toledo, the health department, and Five Corner Store owners are working together on Toledo's food access challenges with the two initiatives. First, with the ARPA funding, we partnered with five locally owned stores across the zip codes of 708, 1214, and 15 to bring healthy options closer to home. With the program, we've been able to provide refrigeration units, freezer units, produce racks, marketing, nutrition education, and community engagement. The results have been transformative, and we're only just beginning. Jay Clay Community Market has turned the entryway to a store that just once promoted pop only to an open area with fresh frozen produce.

Gold Star Market expanded from just selling bananas and canned goods to a full variety of produce while also implementing technology to help track the healthy foods sales. Rendell's carryout went from selling nothing healthy, like fresh produce wise, offering low fat dairy, eggs, hummus, and also a wide range of fruits and vegetables. Yarlu African Market provides culturally relevant options like yams, okra, plantains and frozen spinach, which are all SNAP eligible items. For many of these communities, this is the first time residents can walk into their local store and see fresh produce available and promoted as part of their daily shopping. Second, we're making produce affordable.

Phoenix Earth Food Co. Op is our fifth store participating and is now currently Toledo's only brick and mortar Produce Perks site. As Mara mentioned, Produce Perks program matches Snap produce purchases dollar for dollar up to $15 a day, which is doubling their buying power for fresh fruits and vegetables. Since August, 30 Snap customers have enrolled. In just two months, customers have accrued nearly $250 in produce credits, and of those credits, they have already redeemed over $100 to pay for fresh produce.

Customers have boosted the store's produce sales by over $200 and many customers are now returning weekly to purchase their produce locally. One customer wasn't planning to buy any produce, learned about the match and spent $20 of their SNAP benefits on fresh fruits and vegetables and then turned around and received $15 for their next time. Access plus affordability is changing the two shopping habits. So together, these initiatives are proving what's possible, expanding access by equipping corner stores to sell healthy food while making produce affordable through SNAP incentives. I've been proud to lead this program development with my coworker, Amy, while working alongside Mara, who has been critical has been a critical partner in promoting these initiatives and identifying future funding.

To make a lasting impact, we must sustain and expand beyond this pilot phase. Unfortunately, due to budget cuts, as Mayor had mentioned, produce perks at Phoenix is set to end at the end of this year, and the corner store program will end at the 2026 when the ARPA funds are exhausted. Continued funding will allow more stores to transform and produce perks to scale citywide. Collaborating with members of the future, Greater Toledo Food Policy Council can build more bridges and break down silos. Together, we can share every Toledo resident has access to healthy and affordable food in their neighborhood.

Thank you for your leadership and support in building a healthier future for our city. Our kickoff events are going to begin in October, and I hope you'll be able to step out to support your local store owner who has worked incredibly hard to make the pilot program successful. Thank you.

Thank you. Awesome work.

Next we have Amy Abedele. I hope I'm not killing that name. Welcome.

Good evening, council members. My name is Amy Avedili. I'm a registered dietitian at the Toledo Lucas County Health Department. With fourteen years of experience working at the Ohio Department of Health's Creating Healthy Communities grant that focuses on policy, systems, and environmental change for healthy food access and opportunity for physical activity. I'm here today to share insight from the ongoing CARET assessment Mara mentioned, while I serve as a core team member interviewing organizations across Toledo.

The CARET tool, like Mara mentioned, is 101 indicators across seven core themes to evaluate our food system. Our interviews reveal both significant challenges and tremendous potential. The barriers are clear: organizations operating in silos, duplicated efforts, fragmented funding, and limited coordination between emergency food assistance and long term food security solutions. However, the opportunities are equally compelling. Toledo has passionate organizations, community knowledge, and political will.

What we need is better coordination and strategic alignment. The final care results will help us identify specific gaps in our food systems and directly inform the development of a food policy council for the greater Toledo area. A policy council would bring together diverse stakeholders to develop coordinated strategies that address root causes of food insecurity while supporting local economic development. The city of Toledo, as Mara has mentioned, has applied for a USDA regional planning grant to fund this council development, with the Toledo Lucas County Health Department committed as a key partner. Even without federal funding, the need remains critical, and we need your support to establish a Greater Toledo Food Policy Council that can coordinate our city's food system work effectively.

I urge you to support creating a Toledo or support creating a Greater Toledo Food Policy Council as part of our commitment to building a more resilient, equitable city where all residents have access to healthy, affordable food. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you.

Next we have Yvonne Dubilek.

Oh, that was really good.

Thanks. I'm Yvonne Dubilek. I'm the Executive Director at Toledo Groves. I'm just here to say thank you to the city for having the foresight to hire a food policy manager, much less hire Mara, who is, I think, the perfect person in this position. This is the right work at the right time.

We provide support for about 110 community gardens in and around the Toledo area, And there are a lot of these kind of issues that Mira has touched on that come up frequently with growers and hoop houses and soil testing and all those kinds of things. There's a lot of work being done in collaborative circles in the city of Toledo. A food policy council or a food council would bring all that together, I think. Worked, several of us, with the former food council in this area, and it kind of fizzled, I think because everybody was a volunteer. And so this seems like it will be set up to have some staffing and to really keep it moving ahead.

I just want to say I did meet this kind of got brought home recently because I met someone who moved here recently from North Carolina, very serious about growing good, healthy organic food for themselves. And I said, why did you move from North Carolina? She said, well, we work remotely so we could live anywhere. But we see the writing on the wall. This is a climate haven here, climate change haven. And with all of the lakes, the water here, the good soil, this is the place to be, to be able to be in agriculture and grow healthy food for themselves. So we're in a perfect time, a perfect place. I think we have the perfect infrastructure now to really keep this moving ahead. Thank you.

Thank you. We're building that band.

Next is Carrie Arnold.

Hello. I'm Carrie Jo Gribble, Operations Manager for Cherry Street.

And I'm Carrie Arnold, Vice President of Workforce Development, Cherry Street.

Down at Cherry Street, we serve roughly 15,000 meals per month, and we are seeing an increase in humans coming down because they have limited access to fresh food in their areas as well as we rely on our community for donations. Approximately 90% of the food that we serve to our guests is from food donations, and we are seeing a little dry up from our community partners and our community farmers and some of our relationships that bring food down to Cherry Street have relied on the USDA and with the decrease in funds, we are seeing a decrease in our donations as well.

And I wanted to take a moment and just talk about our food truck at Cherry Street. As the VP of Workforce Development, we have eight different programs that we train in vocationally at the Life Revitalization Center. One of them is a culinary program. So we are doing workforce development in that area. We do six week training courses about four times a year. We've trained about 54 people so far graduated from the program just since last June. We our truck is called a second helping. Our students, once they graduate, are converted to employees, which then work on the trucks. They get paid while they're working on that truck. Our truck goes out it is donation based only.

We go out to private events to collect donations. And then with those donations, we turn it around and purchase food and hand it out to the community. Last fiscal year, just to give you some numbers, we did about 4,000 meals. When I say fiscal year, I'm talking, let's say, 07/01/2024 through the June 2025. Just to put it in perspective, this last quarter, so 07/01/2025 through current, we have done over 4,800 meals in the community.

So the need is definitely out there. It's growing. We have seen things like grown adults crying on the street because we've handed them a salad because they're so desperate for fresh healthy food. And that is our mission to get we're not deep frying Twinkies on that truck. We're handing out salads and wraps and things that people really need and haven't had for a long time. So we'd love to do more of that. We do get some funding from CDBG from the city. We're super grateful for that. We get some funding from other grants like the Toledo Community Foundation and some local banks. Without that funding, we could not do what we do.

With more funding, we could do more, and we'd be happy to do that. I did bring along a couple of brochures I'd like to leave. If anyone has any questions, I'd be happy to answer them. My contact information is in there. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Councilwoman Williams, if you could hold one minute.

Ms. Arnold, I have question for you real quick, if you will, chair. Yes, please. Just a

quick question. You guys used

to partner with Owens with that culinary program. Do you still do that or no?

Owens Community College. We partner with Owens for our welding program and our machining program.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah, the food truck program we developed internally.

Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Next is Theresa Johnson.

And while you're walking up, we'll have councilwoman McPherson.

Excuse me, ma'am, before you leave. Arnold. Miss Arnold. Sorry. Okay. Are you the food truck that was at the Wayman Palmer?

Yes. We were.

Oh, my. For

the grand opening, for when yeah. We

Yeah. That was our

The salads.

Yes. Yes.

Amazing.

Oh, thank you. This is the young lady who produces all of them. Thank

you so very much.

I'm not. And you guys can

get them. Out the forms and request us.

Okay. I need a form.

Right on time. We'll make sure you get one.

Good try.

I would need a form.

Okay. I'll make sure

you get one. Thank you.

Thank you. The floor is yours, please.

Good afternoon, as they say. And thank you, counsel, and all of you that are here today. My name is Theresa Johnson, and I'm a representative of St. Lucas Outreach and Cafe. Our mission in the 43609 area, and our lunches are open to anybody, is our mission is to combat hunger and address food insecurity by providing nutritional meals to individuals experiencing homelessness and those facing lifestyle crisis.

And in the 43609 area, I deal with mostly people 55, veterans, homeless, people that do I call them couch surfers. They do not have a place to live, and an excessive amount of abandoned houses that house a lot of the folks I see. Our cafe is open Tuesday through Friday from twelve to one. We feed anywhere from 70 to a day, sometimes higher, and we feed over a thousand a month. And there's no cost.

And they come in and they eat. Through compassionate outreach, community partnerships with them building all over the place, and dedicated volunteers. We have one paid volunteer, and she's my cook. She also works full time as a McDonald manager, so you know her hours are absolutely and she's a single mother of three children. So she works hard at what she does, and she only gets a small stipend.

We strive to offer food not only food, but hope connection and access to resources that promote stability and well-being. And one of the things that our cafe is known for is we serve a serve the lunch four days a week in a cafeteria style, giving the community a warm welcome setting to enjoy some respite from outside. It's a place of peace, a place of honor, and we treat each other with respect. We also have unlimited coffee, unlimited Kool Aid, and all the water they can drink. We follow this program.

Our meals are all served in this policy. Four ounces to two ounces of meat, fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, salads, coleslaw, buns, and we have our remote bakers. We have remote bakers, and what it is is I get donations donations of brownies and cakes and whatever, and I will hand them to anybody I can and say bring them in next week. I call them my remote makers. The biggest problem we're having is, of course, funding, which we're all under that kind of program at this time.

And I've come up with I put my head together with my staff, and we are collecting cans, smashing them up, turning them in. Doesn't sound like a lot, but $19 a week will buy me fresh fruits and fresh vegetables. I take any and all donations. I go to people's areas, and I'm right now, I'm trying to build a partnership, which I talk tomorrow about with Saint Andrews Gleaming. And it's a nationwide gleamers.

They have one in Maumee, and we're trying to get where we can go into the fields and pick up the apples and the tomatoes. And I will take anybody that has a community garden that wants to donate, cucumbers, peppers, whatever it is, and my cook will cook those meals. We serve a full rounded meal. I challenge you all to come and see what we do at St. Luke's because it is phenomenal.

We also will take into consideration if you have allergies. And I think we're the only cafe for the folks in our 43609 that will help you. If you are allergic to wheat or you're allergic to onions and garlic, we will help you to make sure you get a full meal. I want to thank you for allowing me to come in here today. I challenge you to come down and visit us. I gave Mara one of my flyers. I have more. And I want to thank you all for setting up this food policy. I think together as a community, we can build the community. But it's going to take a lot of creative work. Thank you. Thank you.

Amelia Gibbon, please.

Good afternoon, council persons, council people, power people. Good to be up here. Hi, Mara. My name is Amelia Gibbon. I'm here today representing Reinvest Toledo, which is a coalition that represents nine low to moderate income communities within our city.

And I just have three simple points I want to share with you before I take my seat. First of all, we are appreciative of the investment that council has made in this position. We think you have selected an awesome person passion and her authenticity is very much appreciated in community. One thing I want to mention is that policy is the only tool available for effective change to this problem, and community needs to be seen as an equitable partner. There's a lot of work boots on the ground happening, but until we have policy that impacts and supports the changes we need, we'll continue to be gasping for air.

You can only have so many food pantries. You can only do so much with so little. And the urgency of today often outweighs the needs for planning for tomorrow. But I think we're at a critical crossroads now where we have to do both. We have to feed people, but we've also got to figure out strategically how to impact this issue and policy and law is definitely the route in which we have to go.

I want to challenge everyone in this room to think about changing the narrative when you talk to community. Let's not talk about gardening. Let's talk about farming as a career path, as an economic driver because when you we've already discussed all the abandoned gardens. Right? So we know that method that methodology is not working.

So we've got to change the language in order to get some to get our community interested to, you know, it's an opportunity to affect change in your neighborhood, but it's also an opportunity to become entrepreneurs, also an opportunity to, again, see this as the economic driver. And thirdly, there is a lot of energy from a systemic space about urban ag, and community's voice is imperative. We cannot make decisions without the voice of those being impacted the most, not by choice, but simply because of their ZIP code. Thank you.

Thank you.

Mindy Repp.

Welcome.

Afternoon, council people. Thank you for having me. My name is Mindy Rapp, and I'm proud to represent Toledo Seagate Food Bank as the executive director. For more than forty years, our mission has been to eliminate hunger in Northwest Ohio. Lucas County and the city of Toledo are the very heart of this mission.

Today, hunger is still one of the greatest challenges facing our community. In Lucas County, nearly one in five children and thousands of seniors don't always know where their next meal is coming from. Families who are working, sometimes more than one job, are still faced with impossible choices, whether to pay rent, utilities, or buy medicine or put food on the table. Hunger does not just affect individuals. It weakens our neighborhoods, our schools, and our communities.

Seagate Food Bank is unique. We are the only independent food bank in Ohio. We are not part of Feeding America or the Ohio Association of Food Banks. We never charge our partner agencies a fee for any of the food that we collect. We do the two USDA food programs that's here in Northwest Ohio.

We have eight counties in Northwest Ohio, one in Northeast Ohio. Don't ask. And we do the TFAP program, which is a temporary emergency food program, which way back in the day when it started, it was called the Cheese and Butter Program because that's all they had. And then I always found it amusing that the next thing they brought in was raisins after all of that cheese. But now it's all different foods.

It's a whole variety of food. And the other one that we do, we call our senior program, and it is called CSFP or commodity supplemental food program, where our seniors get a box of food every single month, and it's all the USDA decides what goes in that box. We do about 4,000 boxes every

single month for them.

I just lost track. Anyway, being an independent food bank and not being part of the big corporation, we do have to work a little bit harder to get our funding. There is money that does come down from the national government into our state that is provided for feeding. And we've been fighting and fighting and fighting to get our fair share of that. But we obviously, we're being small.

We don't have a mouthpiece down in Columbus working for us. So we were thrown a bone, I will say, where we were given 250,000 in the budget. We went, wow, it's really great, right? Isn't that awesome? The Ohio Association of Food Banks receives $24,500,000 Of that, our fair share would come out to be 8.49% or over $2,000,000 But, hey, they gave us $250 Anyway, so we keep fighting for that.

So anything you guys can do to help us fight that fight, I would certainly appreciate. We feed we touch about 150,000 individuals every single month. We distribute millions of pounds of food each year. But today, the need is growing faster than our resources. Federal and state support has been reduced or completely cut.

Grocery donations have decreased, and costs for transportation and storage are higher than ever. This summer, DOGE cut one USDA program that affected our food supply tremendously. 19 loads of protein and fresh dairy were canceled for our area. This was $655,000 worth of very high quality food. That did not make it to the plates for hungry citizens.

At the same time, the number of people seeking food assistance continues to rise. Simply put, demand is up while supply is down. Together, we can change this. We can make sure that children in Lucas County have the nourishment that they need to learn in school, that seniors do not go to bed hungry, and that families facing hard times can stand with dignity and hope. That is why I'm here today, not just to share the challenge but to ask for your voice and your partnership in raising awareness.

Hunger is not a problem one organization can solve alone. It takes the city that cares, leaders who recognize the need, and neighbors who look out for one another. So I ask you please talk about the hunger crisis because there is a crisis here. Share it with your constituents, your networks, your families. Encourage those who are able to volunteer, to donate, or simply to check on a neighbor who may be struggling.

When we bring this issue to the light, we inspire action. And when we inspire action, we feed hope. On behalf of Toledo Seagate Food Bank, I thank you for your time. And I would also like to invite each and every one of you to come and visit Toledo Seagate Food Bank to see who we are and what it is that we do. So thank you very much.

Thank you.

And you

are awesome. Ma has not been here very long. You know, in doing what I do, I hear lip service a lot. And when I first met her, I went, mhmm. Yeah, Okay. Good luck to you there. But she's been amazing, and what she has done in the short time that she's been here kind of blows my mind. So keep it up. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is Jo Deeb.

As you're walking out, Jo, I just want to I often, on my soapbox, talk about the power of with. When we work with the community. That's when we build sustaining change. And I really see that spark and mar, and that's what keeps me going. So I I hear the lip service thing. I see it a lot too, and we're really wanting to make that change.

Please. Absolutely. Good afternoon, councilmembers. My name is Joe Deaver. I'm the sales director at Alpeak and Sons Foodservice, a family owned company servicing Toledo region for over seventy five years.

I'm here on behalf of the owner, Philip Peak, who is traveling today but is wants to send his full support for this important conversation. At Alpeak and Sons, we believe that feeding our community is not just our business, it's our responsibility. Every day, we work with local farmers, growers, and suppliers to bring fresh, nutritious, and safe food to the tables of schools, restaurants, hospitals, and organizations right here in Toledo. We have seen firsthand the impact that accesses to local healthy food systems has on our families. When we strengthen our local food supply chain, we can keep dollars in our community, support local jobs, and ensure that children, seniors, and vulnerable neighbors have the nourishment they need to thrive.

The barriers we most often see are affordability, access, and infrastructure. We face challenges with rising transportation costs, limited distribution, resources for some local farms and the need for continued investment in cold storage and last minute deliveries. These opportunities for the city to partner with a business like ours, helping us expand sourcing improvement efficiencies and ensure that healthy food is available in every neighborhood, not just some. We are ready to be part of this solution. We're committed to working alongside with the city, local farmers, and organizations like the city's first food policy manager, MARA, to build stronger to build a stronger food system for Toledo.

Together, we can make sure that every resident, no matter what ZIP code, has the access to quality fresh fruit. Thank you for your leadership in inviting us to this community to be a part of the discussion. We're proud to represent Toledo's food industry and look forward to collaborating. Thank you very much. Appreciate you, Mara.

Thank you.

Next is Gary Leonard.

I just want to shout out Gary does a lot of work with One Voice for East Toledo. He gave me a great tour and is very in touch with the needs there. And then Tina Hall is representing both Reinvest Toledo and Lincoln School Coalition. So hoping to work with them both.

Looks like Debbie Lisk.

Ryan Sundwold.

Hello, council, members of council. Ryan Sundbold, senior planner with the Toledo Lucas County Planning Commission. I'm joined here with the Interim Director, Lisa Cottrell. So we've been working with Mara for many years, although we do love the work that Mara's doing. We lost Mara working at the Planning Commission as a planner, we are grateful that she stayed with the City of Toledo and is working on this and her dream job.

So that being said, from the Planning Commission, we've been working with Mara not only from the development approval and development services side of things with getting the permitting easier for greenhouses, easier for growing. This goes back all the way to 2018 when I worked on the urban agriculture regulations in our zoning code. So we permit growing in neighborhoods and we allow for these types of structures to be built and used in single family and multifamily neighborhoods. On the other scale of that, besides development services where we're supporting and working with Merit to get these themes streamlined, get these greenhouses built and get things growing, for lack of a word, we're also looking at things how this connects to our long range planning team and as well the long range plan in our Forward Toledo plan. So within the Forward Toledo plan, we had our 33 goals.

One of those goals is healthy food access. And with that goal, we're looking to implement it by not only having a food policy manager, but also starting to have some of these streamlined processes to allow growing in the community. Besides that, as Meredith mentioned, we're also working on a healthy food overlay, so we're excited to see what other economic incentives and packages we can work with the economic development department to get a lot of these buildings that we know are in the middle of neighborhoods reused, opened up for markets, specifically for healthy food, but also other businesses like the technological businesses or the restaurant businesses that support the consumption or need for growing healthy food. And those are exciting projects we're working on right now. Esther in our office, Esther Tetay, shout out to her for getting that process started and getting that development going.

So we really thank you, Mara. Mara like Sarah, we always like to say. Really appreciate you, Mara, we're really proud and happy of all the work you're doing. Thanks.

I would just reiterate that we are here to support Mara and her initiatives in any way that we can. Planning Commission is here to be a supportive partner with whatever she needs.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next we have Paul Redrup.

And as you're walking up, Paul, Councilwoman Williams. Director Cottrell, I actually could use those two by fours to build my blocks.

My my box is for my garden for my kids. I'm just saying. Thank

you.

Hi. I'm Paul Redrup. I'm a staff attorney with Advocates for Basic Legal Equality, and I have I'm the new kid on the block. So I am now meeting Mara for the first time. But I work with Upsy.

I work alongside Cara Jennings who works with Amelia with reinvest Salido, and I want to throw our support, Able's support behind Mara and this initiative. We recognize how critical food access is, and we also recognize how difficult it is, especially as a long time Toledo resident. I mean, we've been battling this for as long as I can remember. Big box stores, you know, now it's dollar stores. And so this is a critical initiative, and we understand that.

One thing I want to make sure gets some emphasis from my personal standpoint, this is now not Able speaking, this is me speaking, certainly my work at Able informs this, how critical it is that this is an end to end process. Food access is awesome. We can produce all the food in the world. We can put it in a store somewhere or we can put it on a truck somewhere. Unless the folks that are going to consume the food feel that it's accessible to them, making all the food in the world available make no difference.

We're talking about folks who single parents, three children living in a home that has not been repaired for months or years by their landlord. Maybe they're dealing with their own health issues. They have two jobs. And when they get home at the end of the day, they have the choice to buy a $2 frozen pizza that can feed two or three, or they have the choice to buy healthy fresh food. Or even if it's free healthy fresh food, They need the support end to end, and I don't mean just the food support.

They need all the support that we can provide. So when we're looking at food policy, and by God, I support creating the Food Policy Council and everything that Mara is doing. But please continue to support all the other initiatives that make it possible for a person to come home at the end of the day and take the time to cook a healthy meal. And that goes all the way to reminding them how to cook a healthy meal. It sounds so simple to some of us, but we've got a generation and probably multiple generations now that may have never had a from scratch meal prepared in their home.

And so it's critically important that we work with the community, and several people have said it, work with the folks that are going to receive this food so that they get what they need and they have input in the process. So thank you

all. Thank you.

Next we have Richard Arnold.

Oh, we're going to hold off one minute, Richard. I think he's going to change the subject. So I just want to hold off. Correct? You're going talk about food policy? Okay. I just want to Okay. Okay. One moment. Yep. I see we just have hands up.

Can we move Sandra up? Do you mind? She has to get going.

Yes. Believe that was everyone on our list. So if we just give me one sec. Okay. I'm gonna put this ship right back into place. Okay. I I'm going to call for anyone else who was not on the list because that there's several people with testimony that have not spoken. If you have a time crunch, if we could have those people come up first so that we can make sure we have time to hear everybody and their voices are heard. And as you guys are figuring out your line order, I'm going to have Councilwoman McPherson talk so that we can get right back to you guys.

Move this train right along.

I gotcha. Gotcha.

I just wanted to piggyback off of the able. Am I Yes, Yes. Because I'm that everybody doesn't know how to cook healthy. And it doesn't have to be long and enduring like I cook, because my mom's recipes took time to prepare. And so I say that in hopes that we can put together some cooking classes in our, maybe our community centers, where we can do for example, my mother used to cook cabbage, and she would start it at 6AM before she went to work, and it would cook all day.

I didn't like cabbage because it was soggy, but now I cook my cabbage in the skillet and I stir fry it and it's three minutes and it's done, Healthy. We have to teach quick things because just what he said. Mom comes home from work, she's got three kids, they're ready to eat. We live in an instantaneous world right now because we have the three minute microwave. But there are meals that you can prepare and they not take a long time.

And old school, well, y'all have the air fryer. I use the pressure cooker. Pressure cooker, you can have a whole complete meal in twenty minutes. Air fryer is healthy. So I do believe in as you continue you're doing a great job.

I am amazed too. Wow. You girl, you came in and you started putting things together. But I'm hoping that we can look at and invite parents and families, and we do something with fresh fruits and fresh vegetables with some easy recipes that they can actually do and don't have to buy a whole bunch of different seasonings and my daughter's a chef, very expensive, because I don't have cream of tartar because it costs $5 for that little thing. But we can do some things that can help them, and we can do it right in our community centers, and they can walk down, and we could do a meal and kinda that would be the meal for the day, that dinner, and have some fun, and let the kids teach the kids to cook healthy meals.

Easy things. A celery stick with cream cheese and raisins. What y'all call it? The ants on the bar or the Ants log. Ants a log. It's it's healthy, and it's quick, and kids can do it. We've gotta think creatively and out the box to make this for everybody. So thank you, sir,

for bringing that

Thank you.

Thank you.

Bringing that up. Thank you. And thank you for the work that you're doing.

Thank you, ma'am.

And see if we have we're we're doing that. Come visit.

Alright. Let's return to some testimony. Who's next? If you could come on up. Same rules. Put the mic down to where you can

That's okay. See.

I'm used to it.

I stare to the

side. Thank you.

Yeah, we

have to record it. And then if you could introduce yourself.

Sure.

We'll give you floor choice.

I'm Saundra Irvine. I'm the executive director of the Inspiration Kitchen, a workforce development program for people with moderate to severe barriers. We've had the program seven years. We serve individuals coming out of former incarceration, trauma, abuse, recovery, and generational poverty. Thank you, Councilwoman McPherson, for teeing it up for me, because that's what we do.

We take individuals that are basically moderate to severe barriers, most all are unsnap, and put them through 19 classes, one hundred and fifteen hours over ten weeks successive ten week programs. I am now at Lotte Industries in the amazing kitchen. I am part of their farm. I brought their farmer in. We are now farming an acre and a half plus a 2,100 square foot hoop house, and food for thought is there.

So we have an amazing triad there. I was at a Christmas holiday party, and I heard that there was a new food policy manager that was going to be instituted. I got so excited, I called all over the city, and they said, we can't tell you who it is until we announced it. And Mera came out and visited our farm, our kitchen. We are empowering individuals. We are the workforce development training side. What we see is tons of food, not accessible at times, and no training. No training for employment. We follow our students for nine months. We've been doing this a long time.

We are the culinary program of choice for Cherry Street. We're on their brochure. We are backing everything that MERA has to offer because we have the farm, the food pantry, and our training program. It's very intensive. And people that come in, some of them don't even have a GED, and we just want to expand their horizons with education.

In culinary, we tell them over and over, over 19 classes, you are now an ambassador to your family, your children, and your community that you can do better in terms of workforce employment and food. So we are trying to break that barrier. We don't do a very good job of social media. We're trying to get out there. But being at a lot of industries now with that facility has, you know, allowed us to really bloom.

So we can we're consistently every 10 weeks doing 12 adult students for that. The one thing I'd like to share is we had several rejections over the last three years. We are have just two months ago an honoree of the Jacques Pepin Foundation. And the foundation focuses if I could just read a quick blurb on that, just a three second blurb. And what they do is enriching lives and strengthening communities through the power of culinary education.

The Jacques Pepin Foundation protects and extends teaching and inspiring people for personal growth, improved health, and creating employment pathways to job opportunities by supporting programs like we do. It's a very difficult thing to get, and we're super proud of it. We're here for Amara because what she's doing, it puts Toledo on the mat. It makes us real big by doing that because food is everything. It's healing.

It is empowering. And one of the greatest things ever is you can teach culinary intensive education, and those transferable skills apply to any job out there. So we place people, of course, in culinary. We're hooked up with all the farms, all the culinarians in town, and we have Mara now. So thank you very much.

Thank you. Welcome.

Good evening council members. My name is Jill Bunge. I have fifteen years experience in the nonprofit sector, much of which is focused on nutrition and emergency food access. I'm the former executive director of Food for Thought. I'm currently the vice president of impact and outreach at United Way. I am a home gardener in District 4. I'm a pretty decent home cook. And I'm a lover and an eater of food. Last year, I completed my master's degree in public health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with a focus in food systems. And I've had the privilege of working with Mara since her role began in February.

We have a a lot of deeply pressing issues across our community, as you all know. But I would first like to thank counsel for this critical investment of staff time, attention, and expertise at the city level. Having a food policy manager as a national best practice to drive forward sound policy and critical collaboration to make a healthier and more resilient food landscape. I'm really proud to live in a community where our local city government is taking seriously the support of our food system. As you all know, we also at United Way oversee our two in-one information and referral service.

We've seen since 2021 and the deep throes of the pandemic till today a 75% increase in the number of food calls that are coming into our Health and Human Service hotline. The needs are overextended because there's just so few resources in our community. I know that you all received our district reports that we send on a monthly basis, but this is something that we're monitoring very closely and very troubled by because those referrals are more challenging with, as Mindy said, scarcity of food throughout our community. But when we think about our food system, it encompasses an extremely wide range, right? Our neighbors who struggle to put food on the table or to obtain fresh, healthy, and culturally appropriate food.

Our farmers who are an imperative part of the great legacy of our agricultural history and the reason we can sustain ourselves through their labor and food production. Our food businesses I was so happy to see Alpeak Produce here through their distribution, their value add, their sharing in the local food economy, and of course our land and water, which we're responsible for stewing. It's a massive undertaking, and we need all of the brains and hearts and minds and people rowing in the same direction to make that positive change across this continuum. As was mentioned, many of our safety net supports like SNAP are in peril. And funding for our community organizations to do really critical food systems work is ever more scarce.

I'm so thrilled that Mera is in her position because right now I think we need a strategic and collaborative approach to really harness all of the energy, knowledge, and innovation that we have throughout the community. I'm both personally and professionally dedicated through my work at United Way to finding additional financial resources, complementing mayor's work, really working in lockstep with the city. And we know that there have been countless other dedicated community activists and growers who have really driven this forward for decades. But it really feels like there's a new momentum now with the city support behind it. So really appreciate your commitment and dedication to this work.

Thank you. We appreciate what you're doing.

Good evening, counsel, and happy birthday. I'm Reggie Williams, the executive not executive director, but I'll the program director for the Friendly Center, former Executive Director of the Frederick Douglass Community Association, and a representative of Reinvest Toledo as the Raised Voices advocacy cohort, and then also the Dohler Jarvis visionary cohort. I'm standing here today to talk about the scarcity of food in support of Mara and what she's doing in our community. What I've seen in Vestula neighborhood with the food distribution that I have undertaken is overwhelming number of families taking advantage of the food distribution that we do. Renaming one the food distribution at the Friendly Center is the Friendly Bag and to make people feel more welcoming to receiving food.

Our partnership is with the Seagate Food Bank and we are doing a great job to really impact. One thing is is that I'm not all about charity and doing good. I want to do great to impact food scarcity at the root to where we can impact policy and bring change to our community. I think it's rather important that partnership, collaboration, but true partnership and true collaboration is what's needed in the city of Toledo. We have great organizations that are doing a great job, doing great work, and very much so having great impact, but we need to come together as organizations, nonprofits, churches, faith based community, and the business sector of the private sector.

To your point, councilman McPherson, we partner with Mercy Health, and we've done a cooking classes at the Friendly Center called Healthy on a Budget. This was done on Wednesdays. We did a pilot program with, Mercy Health and then also with Ohio Extension, talking about great opportunities to understand what we receive from the Seagate Food Bank or our food pantry distributors to understand that when we give to our clients that we can come up with recipes of what you have in your bag, how to prepare, and then also being able to taste what is being offered to you. So this program was very successful as a pilot. However, funding from the state level has caused the Ohio Extension to come to an end.

But we're looking forward to doing more in 2026 as far as having food classes, being able to cook on the budget, being able to utilize what we have in our pantries, and being able to, one, offer the clients, our neighbors, recipe, booklets to be able to say, hey. This is what you can do with the food that you receive from, the Friendly Center. We thank, the Friendly Center for the opportunity, one, for hiring me to be able to revamp and be able to impact the Vistula neighborhood and to get your friendly bags. So I do have a flyer for you to share with your area influence to talk about what where can you get these foods and then also the times that we will be doing the distribution. Also, along with that, we coupled that with the friendly care closet, understanding that there are hygiene needs.

There are some things that our youth, our residents are in need of as far as just basic essentials. And being able to receive your food, you'll be able to receive that also at the Friendly Center. In regards to our youth, understanding that the households that we represent in the facility neighborhood, that 60 to 74% live in poverty and understanding that the dynamics of our youth going hungry over the weekend, let alone, you know, not being able to receive a healthy, well balanced meal throughout the week. We started the focus program, which stands for friendly opportunity centered around students. And so we are doing some dynamic things starting in October and looking forward to being able to broadcast that to our community of how impactful the Friendly Center is becoming in the Vestula neighborhood under our Tula Lich in leadership of myself and then Andrew Newby.

And so looking for great partnerships with all organizations that would like to get together with me on our endeavor to impact and bring change, but also to tear down the tyranny of poverty in our community. And so I thank you for the opportunity. Ma, I appreciate the opportunity to stand on your behalf and in great partnership with you. And I look forward to many, many more ways that we can have influence but also be inspirational to bring change to the city of Toledo. Thank you.

Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to speak about food policy? Welcome. Hello.

Hi. My name is Oscar. Oscar Shahir operate a business, York Community Market in the inner city of Toledo, Ohio. Been there for twenty some years. And I just like to say a few words. Denise Williams, she should know me because I've always been into food. We used to I'm a PTA. I was the president of PTA in Robinson junior high school. We made sure that we have those, what you call, those bake sales. The parents try to get the fresh foods, fresh whatever it is for the students.

And I remember her as a youth coming by our table, and they sometimes they would complain because some of they had their last lunch. And they would say, why you didn't save us something? So we I had my wife to bake things and bring them in around noon so they can get some of the nutrition as well. So I think some of our food have helped her and make her healthy and smart and intelligent and whatnot. And and my daughter went to school with her as well, and they had good conversation.

But the main idea about nutrition, I'm very concerned about it because my grandfather was a farmer and he had a good farm in in Georgia. And I remember many times going out, just walking out in the field picking up tomato without washing it and different things like that. When I got to the Northern part of The United States, when people say, you wash this and wash this, clean this, it's not it puzzled me. It puzzled me a whole lot. However, in as you know, the the the I must say this, black farmers have not been dealt with properly within The United States Of America, and it bothered me as well.

And that's one reason why I I wanna do something that's nutrition because I have a family. Food is good for every part of your body. I like food more than I do medicine. Medicine has side effect. It could be damaging, but food has a very positive effect.

And those who are biblical, you know that they put they was put in a garden. They didn't have no clothes, but they at least had food. So I think it's very important today that our our community, the inner city operate within the inner city of Toledo, Ohio, probably have one of the largest food produce market within the city for African America within the inner city? Probably. I don't know.

But I get very little attention, you know, when I tell people I'm my building is for healthy food, and many people tell me that, you know, you you'll be better at having a carryout. But I don't I don't smoke. I don't do all those things, so why should I sell it to my people? You know? I didn't make my living that way.

So I'm very concerned about, especially African America, how we've been dealt with. Northwest Ohio, I don't think of the percentage of farmers in Northwest Ohio, there's probably it's not even 1%. You know? And I I I noticed how many asked for donation, asked for grants. I've never I've been there twenty some years.

I never gotten a grant. And I don't bother them, but because I feel that, you know, somehow we'll continue to proceed on and we'll make it somehow. But I dealt with our peaks. I've dealt with I worked with the Potawat Center, Frederick Douglass Community Center. I worked with them.

I've worked with many community organization within the inner city of Toledo, including the part of our center as well. So I'm concerned about nutrition that we eat properly, especially our young people within inner city. I think it's very healthy for them. I think it's very good for them, and it's something where I don't think we can ask for too much because we don't we give very little. So just to help our young people to grow into healthy people, I think you can't ask for too much for that.

Now I'm going to say a little thing few things about Mara. I met her mother about eleven or twelve years ago. Her mother used to come to my store. I operate, by the way, in Downtown Toledo Farmers Market and also Westgate. And her mother would come to my store many times and she would purchase things for me.

And she would tell me about her children, what school they went to, and different things like that. I met her whole family through her mother. One time she was telling well, I even met her brother before he even got married. So the reason why Mary is so healthy and so intelligent because she I'm helping her from my market. So that's pretty much all I wanted to say, and I thank you, Mayor. I really do appreciate you, and I thank the council for allowing me to say a few words as well. Thank you.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you. Councilwoman Williams.

So I I'm telling you, mister Shahir has kids, and they all got straight a's. So he knows what he's talking about.

Thank you. Is there anyone else that would like to speak on food policy?

I have a letter from Sonia that I'd like to read. This is from Sonya Flunder McNair. Many of you know she's the ED at Urban Holistics and the CEO of Sonya Organics. She could not be here today but wanted me to read this message for city council. So attention, city council members. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to speak. I'm here today to remind you that Tatum Park is not just a green space. It is a true community asset. The activities that take place here curb violence, and the proof is in the results and preliminary findings. At the corner of Woodland And City Park Avenue, next to the historic Art Tatum House, once stood one of the most violent areas in the Junction neighborhood plagued by constant gun violence, assaults, and families left with memories of Toledo residents that had lost their loved ones on Woodland Avenue.

Today, because of the transformation we've created at Tatum Park, there is less gun violence, murders, and aggravated assaults. With your continued support and with stronger consistent police presence, we can make it even safer. Tatum Park has already changed lives. It has created opportunities by contracting youth farmers and teachers who are teaching Sonja Organics curriculum and Texas A and M junior master gardener certification program in newly established urban agriculture daily in a newly established urban ag daily classroom on the East Side Of Toledo at Toledo Prep Academy. Soon, this program will expand into Washington local school.

I've also built relationships with leaders in high learning institutions who are opening doors for our youth farmers to continue working and learn about environmental sustainability. We have a history of successful programming with the city of Toledo. Little did I know when we began that food production and beautification would meet so so many deeper meet needs, addressing violence, drug activity, and addiction and blight. Yet despite these outcomes, we still encounter barriers. One barrier is the minimal presence of the Toledo Police Department in some of our communities.

That lack of presence means longer response times, less frequent patrols, and fewer proactive activities. Another barrier is the lack of respect from some officials who choose to speak rudely or authoritatively rather than as respected partners. We've also started food distribution through one of our biggest farmers in the area, but many market stands, restaurants, and citizens still overlook the importance of shopping locally. That is why your role is so important. Policy and legislation matter.

You have seen it firsthand. Our youth farmers were the poster children for Ohio Senate Bill one eleven, which brought nearly half $1,000,000 statewide. These same students were invited and pinned pinned by senator Paula Hicks Hudson for their leadership and contributions to this bill. This is evidence that local investment and youth in agriculture works. And so today, I present a clear ask to you city council.

We are asking that Tatum Park be recognized and designated as an official city to City Of Toledo Park. It is already serving the public. Passerby use it daily as a walking space, and children now use this once unhealthy site to safely catch buses to school. But the area remains very dark and must be well lit for safety. Official recognition and investment will ensure Tatum Park continues to grow as a beacon of healing, learning, and opportunity in the Junction neighborhood.

In closing, council members, I'm asking you to continue supporting this work to see Tatum Park not as a small program, but as a model for violence prevention, community healing, and economic growth. With your commitment, we can make our neighbors not only safer, but thriving. And as we stand beside the historic Art Tatum House, let us ensure that this space shines with the same brilliance and legacy as the artist it honors. Thank you, Sonya, even though she couldn't be here. And I have a quick message that Tim Tim Menke, CEO of Lot Industries, wanted me to share. He said, Can't make it tomorrow. Please share with counsel that Lot 100% supports what we are doing and we are going to accomplish great things in the years ahead. So just shout out to him as well. Thank you.

Thank you. And if you could make sure that we get a copy of the letter, that would be helpful. Yep. Okay. Is there anyone else that wishes to speak on food policy? Okay. Now I'm going to open up the floor to speaking on anything you'd like to bring before counsel. I know that we're gonna start with Richard. He signed the sheet.

Richard Arnold, thank you for the opportunity to speak. This is the housing committee, and I wanna suggest a housing topic that you cover in the future. Everybody's talking about hate speech right now and how it incites violence and all of that. Don't know if you're aware of it. On September 10, the same day that Charlie Kirk was assassinated on Fox and Friends news broadcast. They're having discussion about what to do with the homeless mentally ill. What do we do and what do and the one of the people said, well, we should put them in jail. But Brian Kilmeade said he went he said they should be subjected to involuntary lethal injection. Let me repeat that. Involuntary lethal injection.

And he concluded his comments by saying just kill them. When it comes to hate speech, that's not much gray area. There's nothing to be interpreted there. Just kill them. Now he has since issued the obligatory apology. Oh, I'm so sorry. I didn't mean anything. But he knows exactly what he was saying. That's why he said it on national television. And they know that there are angry people out there who own very large guns and are just looking for a reason to be angry about something.

I'm not I'm not only concerned about people being subjected to violence on the streets, but violence from these political activists or whatever you wanna call them. Can't blame all of this on Trump. This started during the Biden administration back in November '22. New York City ordered their first responders to start picking up homeless people even if they had not committed a crime or any kind of criminal offense. Bring them in bring them in handcuffs to agencies that had shortages of beds and waiting lists and all that.

It the jury is still out on whether that's working or not. But I'm very concerned about all this hate rhetoric and homeless people being pulled into the middle of it. Most of it concerns, you know, public celebrities and politicians, but the homeless are being dragged into this. We face a very uncertain future. So in the future, I'd like to see either this committee or health committee or public safety committee.

I'd like to know what homeless shelter operators and first responders, TPD, the fire department, they're the ones on the front lines. I would like to know what they're seeing with the homeless, and we know that there's not gonna be a lot of additional funding coming down from the feds. So what can Toledo do with some very limited resources? We're not gonna hear constructive dialogue from the federal government. Trump likes to give speeches and say psychos and sickos and the crowd cheers. We're not going get it from the feds, but I'd like to see what we have here locally. So either this committee in the near future, can you look at what is currently going on now with our homeless situation and what is it going to be in the very near future with these massive Medicaid cuts. So thank you for listening.

Thank you. Nope. I think that's a very timely meeting to have as well just like this one. I know that we're worried about the Medicaid cuts and the Medicare cuts and what that's going to do to our senior population and housing. So thank you for that. Okay. Is there anyone else I would like to bring? Any other issue in front of counsel? Okay. With that, thank you. This has been really informative and I think we've a lot of work to do in front of us, but I think we're going to do it together and we're going to get through this. So with that, this meeting is adjourned.

Love gardening. So hearing about the plants for, like, the community gardens and the lots, I thought was really interesting. Yeah. An interesting meeting.

I was Thank you.