Jericho Road Episcopal Housing Initiative successfully met the following goals of our Healthy Living for Low-Income Familiesprogram in an effort to bring educational and experiential opportunities for healthy living habits to low-income families in Central City, New Orleans:
- Formed partnerships with other local nonprofit and for-profit organizations
- Engaged local chefs
- Provided demonstrations and instruction for cooking healthy meals on a budget
- Provided exposure to local resources for acquiring nutritious ingredients for healthy cooking
- Targeted low-income families, specifically seniors, for one series of classes in Central City
- Provided a safe space for participants to gather, learn, and grow, contributing to the sustainability of people’s physical and spiritual selves
It is by working to understand our neighbors that we will actually know our neighbors. By providing opportunities for families to provide themselves with the simple necessities of life that we all expect, we show our love for our neighbor. In all of the work Jericho Road does, we strive to understand the needs of those we serve and address those needs related to the expertise we can provide.
Jericho Road formed a strong partnership with Dryades Public Market (DPM). DPM is a unique food hub that offers affordable, high-quality food to the Central City corridor. Through partnerships with local, statewide, and regional producers, DPM provides fresh and prepared foods to the Oretha Castle Haley areaand will serve as a flagship property in the neighborhood, driving further economic development. DPM provided space to Jericho Road to hold classes/demonstrations at no charge and often provided a gift basket of ingredients to raffle off to participants. Our local chef partners worked well with the facility provided. See photos below of a couple of our partner chefs prepping in DPM.
Jericho Road also worked with Second Harvest Food Bank to coordinate cooking classes/demonstrations for elderly residents at Central City Economic Opportunity Corporation (CCEOC). This was a real opportunity as it allowed us to bring the classes to the participants. Seniors don’t always have reliable transportation, and this way, we were able to schedule around the participants’ needs and activities.
We heard directly from participants about the value they saw in the Jericho Road events. We saw repeat participants and participants who were referred by other participants – this was how we knew we were doing something that was beneficial.
Jericho Road is excited to continue our work in healthy-living programming through the following:
- Continuation of partnerships with DPM to hold events focused on nutritious, affordable, and accessible foods
- Formation of new partnerships with local growers in the Central City area with the aim to provide educational and hands-on growing opportunities for low-income working families
- Facilitation, in every way we can, of the relationship between local growers, distributors, and consumers of nutritious, accessible, and affordable foods in our target geographic area