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Bronx Borough President Vanessa Gibson and Councilmember Eric Dinowitz announced a $30,000 combined investment in Health Bucks, food access initiatives, and fresh food markets last week in an effort to address the high rates of food insecurity in the Bronx.

The announcement comes as the city’s health department reported that the Bronx is the most food-insecure county statewide, at 39%, with the second highest in Queens and the lowest, at 22.1%, in Richmond County, according to the BP’s office. 

“As the cost of food increases, and access to fresh, affordable produce decreases, we are seeing firsthand the effect it is having on our communities,” Gibson said in a statement. “Many of our residents reside in food deserts without access to nutritious food options.” This lack, she said, “contribute[s] to poor health outcomes and health-related illnesses.”

Launched in 2005, Health Bucks acts as an incentive for New Yorkers to incorporate fresh fruit and vegetables into their daily diets. For every $2 spent at a city farmers’ market or green stand using SNAP on an EBT card, participants can get $2 in Health Bucks, up to $10 per day. 

Gibson’s office contributed $10,000 to invest in Health Bucks. Dinowitz contributed a $20,000 allocation for the Norwood Farmstand (East Gun Hill Road and Dekalb Avenue). 

“Food insecurity continues to be a major issue in our communities,” Dinowitz said in a statement. “With nearly 600,000 Bronx adults at risk of food insecurity in 2022 alone, we must double-down on our efforts to meet our community’s needs. I am grateful for the work of organizations like GrowNYC, [which], through the Norwood Farmstand, have distributed thousands of pounds of fresh fruit and produce in Council District 11. Through discretionary funding, I have been able to support GrowNYC’s work and over the next few months, will be distributing thousands of dollars in Health Bucks to members of our community. I want to thank the Bronx Borough president for partnering with our community in this critical endeavor.”

The Norwood farmers market has been a staple in the community since 2013 and is part of the larger GrowNYC Farmstand network.

“By accepting nutrition benefits and offering Health Bucks incentives to customers using SNAP, we’re ensuring more New Yorkers can access fresh, local food while fostering an equitable regional food system,” said Tutu Badaru, assistant director of GrowNYC Food Access Initiatives. “Health Bucks provide a match of up to $10 a day for fresh fruits and vegetables, increasing shoppers’ purchasing power.” 

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Black Philanthropy Month (BPM) is a global movement centered around funding equity across the Black diaspora. This year’s theme is “Afro-Futures of Giving,” a call for a focus on giving towards afrofuturistic and green initiatives, which NYCHA’s The Inner City Green Team (ICGT) embodies.

After a groundswell of support for racial equity on the heels of the global protest movements of 2020, that fervor – particularly among funders – has waned. However, there are still organizations pre- and post-COVID committed to funding and advancing racial justice.  

BPM was founded by Dr. Jackie Bouvier Copeland in 2011. It officially launches on August 1 each year and includes year-round initiatives by its backbone organization, the Women Invested to Save Earth Fund (The WISE Fund). Copeland is a cultural anthropologist, diplomat, impact designer, and creative at Georgetown University and University of Pennsylvania. She has also been a dedicated environmentalist for decades.

“I have always been a steward of the planet since the day my mother took me to upstate New York to see the foliage when I was eight years old,” said Brigitte Charlton-Vicenty, founder of ICGT. “The magnificence of all the beautiful colors and witnessing the power of nature made me want to care for Mother the way She cares for us, which became my first moment of obligation.”

A native New Yorker, Charlton-Vicenty grew up in the South Bronx with her mother and in Harlem with her father and grandmother. She thought she was doing the right thing by placing recyclables in the designated bins at her development as a kid, but realized that all of her individual efforts to help the planet from her building had been fruitless. Although the city did declare residential recycling as law, over 500,000 residents in the city’s public housing communities did not have access to these programs to safely dispose of their recyclable materials, electronics, textiles, or food scraps, she said. 

“Until 2006, when I witnessed [recyclables] being thrown in with the garbage, I was flabbergasted to learn that all my neighbors’ and my efforts over many years were in vain because NYCHA was not in compliance with the [city’s] recycling laws,” Charlton-Vicenty said. “I envisioned a perfect opportunity to help establish a viable recycling program in my development when I came across a posting urging residents to get involved with the community’s ‘Green Agenda.’”

Inspired by her mother being a powerhouse for the community as a teen, Charlton-Vicenty dedicated her life to promoting a real recycling program in the city’s various public housing buildings. She entered and won $20,000 in the NYCx Co-Lab Challenge: Zero Waste in Shared Space contest in 2017, allowing her to pilot her recycling idea. The international competition sought solutions to improve recycling capture rates, increase resident engagement in a meaningful way, mitigate litter, and reduce the amount of time employees spend dealing with waste. Her program launched at a NYCHA development in Brooklyn’s Brownsville neighborhood. 

ICGT now employs Black and Brown residents in green and recycling jobs. Charlton-Vicenty explained that NYCHA residents have some of the highest unemployment rates in the city and are in critical need of jobs. “Our workforce development model focuses on scaling the service to provide green-collar jobs, environmental leadership, and skill-building for NYCHA residents. We train and hire residents to engage fellow residents,” Charlton-Vicenty said.

She added that NYCHA developments were considered impossible to recycle because of their density and limited space, and haphazard attempts were made to start programs in the past. ICGT filed a lawsuit against NYCHA, forcing the entity to roll out NYCHA Recycles! at all of its 338 developments in 2016.

“I call my work my ‘green ministry’ and I have been privileged to learn my purpose on this planet,” Charlton-Vicenty said. “It is to serve and deliver the message that everything that impacts our environment impacts us all. In my work, Afrofuturism expands the consciousness of our connectedness in marginalized communities to our planet and each other.”

Charlton-Vicenty became an Echoing Green (EG) fellow in 2020. EG is a diverse investment company that supports entrepreneurs that was founded in 1987. In honor of BPM this August, the company is highlighting Charlton-Vicenty.

“The Echoing Green Fellowship was the first organization to support my environmental activist vision. Becoming part of the EG family is incredibly validating and is a social entrepreneur’s dream,” she said. “The global nonprofit provides funding and resources to social innovators with the brightest ideas and talent to make great changes in their communities. We are a tribe of leaders who started at the grassroots level and are committed to solving social issues on every platform.”

ICGT hopes to continue addressing the city’s environmental issues, green leadership, youth development, and the creation of approximately 1,200 sustainable green-collar jobs for NYCHA residents. 

“My idea was visualized out of frustration to find an easy and convenient way for my neighbors and me to recycle. My literal soul was ignited to uncover the truth, and I was compelled to think of a better solution,” Charlton-Vicenty said. “Getting to the bottom of this injustice was deep-rooted because I come from a disenfranchised group that no one in the mainstream environmental community wanted to help. I am determined to pick up the mantle to lead the charge and disprove the stereotype that POC in marginalized communities are not interested in issues like recycling, climate change, and environmental justice.”

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* This article was originally published here

The second annual Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) All-Star Dream Classic was held on August 10 at  Holcombe Rucker Park in Harlem. The event featured 40 of the best men’s and women’s HBCU basketball players from close to 30 different schools representing the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA), Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference (MEAC), Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC), Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC), the HBCU Athletic Conference (formerly known as the Gulf Coast Conference), National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA), and independent college conferences. Sponsors included Champion, M&T Bank, Charles Pan-Fried Chicken, Wilson, Tri-State Sports, SLAM, Pure, HBCU Only, Cirkul, Citywide CCS, Aloft Hotels, and Rucker Pro Legends. Among those in attendance were basketball icon and Harlem native Richard “Pee Wee” Kirkland, who was a prolific scorer for HBCU Norfolk State in the late 1960s, and New York City Councilman Yusef Salaam, who represents the 9th council district of Harlem.
In the women’s game, Althea’s Aces bested Harris’ Hoopers 84-79, and ML Kings defeated Dinkins’ Dunkers 124-119. The teams were named after HBCU alums and luminaries: tennis great Althea Gibson (FAMU), United States Vice President Kamala Harris (Howard), former New York City Mayor David Dinkins (Howard), and civil and human rights activist Martin Luther King (Morehouse). 
The HBCU Dream Classic founder and organizer Darryl K. Roberts expressed that he conceptualized and implemented the event as a means to expose youth to pathways toward higher education at HBCUs, as well as various career options.   
“There are opportunities and there are resources for you to receive access to certain things, whether it’s higher education, whether it’s a trade or a job,” said Roberts, who also serves as the CEO of Bridging Structural Holes, a non-profit organization focused on fostering strategic partnerships with corporate, community, and philanthropic institutions to address economic, educational, and social inequities. “So we’re hoping by doing events like this, they’re able to see the sponsors that we have, and they’re also able to see how we get organizations involved and provide us with volunteers, and then they’ll see the educational components and think that, well, why not? Maybe I should go to an HBCU. I see all these great things, all these great athletes.”Roberts, a graduate of Lincoln University and member of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, detailed integral aspects of HBCU history and culture. 
“Fraternities and sororities were created because of the same reasons that HBCUs were created: because of racism, discrimination, and segregation. Predominantly white institutions did not want people of color to become organized and members of [their] fraternities and sororities,” he elaborated, “because they always thought that, okay, I could deal with one black person, but if I had to deal with a whole army of them, that’s a problem. So they did not want us to become part of those organizations.”
For more information on Bridging Structural Holes and its initiatives, contact Roberts at 212-658-1913 or dkr@bridgingstructuralholes.com.

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* This article was originally published here