Help Equity Advocates fight for food justice

When Gabrielle Blavatsky and Leah Eden founded Equity Advocates, we believed that a lack of collaboration and collective advocacy posed huge barriers to advancing food justice in New York. We’d been in the food policy world for 20+ combined years trying to answer the same questions:

• Why aren’t anti-hunger efforts alone solving hunger?
• How do we fix it??
• How can we instead promote policies that ensure more equitable food access?
• How can we get the food movement political?

Our dream was to push for policy change at community-based organizations (CBOs) that improve access to food for the most vulnerable.?But we soon realized that, though well-funded organizations sometimes had policy staff, the majority of CBOs lacked the capacity or budget to hire even one.

Consequently, hundreds of CBOs in the food space weren’t politically mobilized or activated, nor were they engaged in cross-sector dialogues to share solutions and build collective power.

Meanwhile, legislators charged with making food policy decisions met with the same handful of lobbyists year after year—typically uninformed by the lived experiences of people facing hunger and food insecurity, or representing the diverse perspectives of CBOs providing essential services on the ground.

The problem was clear: the system was broken. And none of the folks whose voices should be at the table, helping fix it, were even in the room.

We realized that, if nobody was connecting and engaging key food systems stakeholders and community leaders in the political process—the system would stay broken forever. It was a lightbulb moment.

What if we did?

So, in 2019, we co-founded Equity Advocates with a mission of fighting the underlying causes of food inequity through policy and systems change. EA provides community-based organizations on the frontlines of the food movement with the tools—including policy education, advocacy training, and coalition-building services—they need to be more civically engaged.

EA has become a leading force and trusted partner of CBOs and policy makers across New York State. In just a few years, we:

• Hosted 28 advocacy trainings to increase the policy skills of 1,400+ community partners
• Launched NYC Food Policy Alliance, a multi-sector group of food system stakeholders advocating for policies & funding to address injustices of the food system and grew it from 20 to 75+ community leaders?
• Informed 35% of the policy strategies in NYC’s 10-Year Food Policy Plan, including the integration of a racial equity framework
• Successfully secured $998 Million through the NYC and NYS Budgets over the last two years to advance food justice and healthy food access across the state
• Organized a 2021 Mayoral and 2022 Gubernatorial forums?on food, hunger and poverty

On November 29th—Giving Tuesday, a global day of giving—Equity Advocates will be launching our end-of-year giving campaign to raise $15,000.

The pandemic put 50.4 million Americans at risk of food insecurity, demonstrating the critical role that the government plays in feeding people, through good food policy and funding. With a deep understanding of how poverty and hunger are systems problems that require systems solutions, Equity Advocates’ work could not be more timely.

Consider?making a donation to Equity Advocates on Giving Tuesday, when your donation will be matched dollar for dollar up to $1,500.?Donations made before or after that date, while welcomed, are ineligible for matching funds.

We need your help to continue building the capacity of nonprofit organizations to address the underlying causes of food inequity through policy and systems change. Thanks, in advance, for your support!