Making Justice Irresistibly Delicious: Interview with Cilia Jurdy of FEEST
Cilia Jurdy talks with Blue Heart co-founder Lindley Mease about supporting youth organizing in Seattle Public Schools. FEEST has quickly evolved as it listens and responds to youth needs. Sharing food, having fun, and analyzing issues together led to a successful campaign to remove police from Seattle public schools and broadening the organizing power of youth.
Lindley Mease: I’d love to hear a little bit about you. What milestones awoke you? What models inspired your work with FEEST?
Cilia Jurdy: I had been working at organizations that focused on providing direct services–the most recent being a food bank. When the pandemic hit in 2020, I got to know FEEST. It was taking awhile for schools to figure out how to do school meals when we were no longer in-person, so FEEST stepped into the gap to do some grocery delivery.
At the time I was getting really frustrated with direct services. Direct services are really important and it was a huge need at that moment during the pandemic. But though we were meeting this dire, urgent need — at least where I was — we weren’t working on how we change the systems so that in the future when a crisis pops up it isn’t as dire and folks aren’t facing terrible choices between rent or food or transportation or how to pay for anything really. In Seattle and across the nation and the world at that time in 2020 there were a lot of people really working for systems changes. The food bank was meeting direct needs, but I really wanted to be part of an organization that was very thoughtfully and purposefully approaching how do we change the system so that our communities and our youth are taken care of and have the resources they need not just to survive but to thrive? Not just the bare minimum but what they actually need to be and be able to do their best.
What really struck me about FEEST was that the work is really youth-led. Youth are organizing for food justice and health equity in their schools. They are working on how to change systems so that students have access to fresh, free, and culturally relevant food at school when they need it–-even in virtual and hybrid learning situations. That’s what really drew me to FEEST.
Also, I was a student in Seattle Public Schools and I remember the food! I remember how often we used vending machines for soda and chips and cookies instead of actually eating the school food.
I was very excited and honored when FEEST offered me the position. Sometimes I still can’t believe it! It was really exciting to move into this world and this work of direct action organizing.
LM: Would you bring us into your community? What does it sound like, taste like, and look like to be at a FEEST meeting or to be in the schools where you are working?
CJ: We work in five schools in two school districts. The schools are in south Seattle and south King County, so historically these are areas that have been disinvested. FEEST’s focus has been food, so we often track who’s on free and reduced-cost lunch in the schools.
The five schools that we work with are over 90% BIPOC (Black Indigneous People of Color) youth and over 85% are eligible for free or reduced-cost lunch–which means that they have their lunch partially or fully subsidized. This is a pretty big break from north Seattle where the schools are predominantly white and less than 60–50% are eligible for free or reduced lunch.
So, there is a pretty big gap of resources in terms of food and a big divide race-wise. Seattle schools used to have a bus program that was very focused on desegregating the schools and that got canceled, so the schools are pretty divided by race.
The schools we work in are in lower-income communities. What that means is that not just the schools but the communities, too, are disinvested in. There are less grocery stores, less places for fresh and affordable food, worse transportation, and a lot of structural issues in the communities. The communities themselves are awesome! We have youth in these schools who are talented and creative!
FEEST started as a dinner program. What we would do pre-pandemic is cook dinners together at the schools we worked in. We would come together. We would bring all the ingredients. We would cook a meal together with FEEST youth leaders and any other students who wanted to join. People would learn how to use the tools, cook together. It would often be meals that had cultural significance for the staff or the youth. So, we’d start with staff bringing recipes that they grew up with and as the year went on youth leaders would bring recipes and folks would bring recipes for things that they grew up eating. While I wasn’t there–oh my gosh–the pictures are always so fun!
You know, I remember the smell of the cafeterias in Seattle schools. And the feel of the food. It was a funky smell in the cafeteria. But these classrooms in which we are able to cook with FEEST, it feels like being transported to a whole different world where we are able to talk about and learn about each other’s backgrounds and roots. We are able to try new foods–like fruits and vegetables that are not as common to some of us, depending on our backgrounds and our families. Also, we are able to share dinner together and discuss things that are affecting youth in school: food issues, mental health, teachers not reflecting the students. There’s a lot of different challenges and barriers that our youth are facing that we are able to dive into. Mostly FEEST staff are there to listen, but also to provide shared analysis and language for how to talk about these issues. These are really just joyful spaces!
Radical joy is one of our core tenets and our tagline in many ways. It was really about how do we have fun together, learn cooking skills, share about our backgrounds, and work together to build power for change.
Since the pandemic started we have been virtual and it’s been hard to say good-bye to the dinners, but we anticipate that we will re-start. For right now even with a lot of the mask mandates winding down, cooking together and eating together is something that the schools are against; and we respect that. We get that. But we do miss it a lot.
We have virtual meetings online and make sure that these are packed with games and fun things to keep the energy up. And we provide food gift cards and food delivery, so that at least we are all eating together virtually. We work with local BIPOC restaurants to coordinate the food delivery–and that is really fun! Everyone is trying the same food together–like persimmons! I always have trouble saying that! We did persimmons in a fruit box once and everyone is like, what are these?! And I had to say, this is my first time, too! It was really fun to bring local seasonal fruit!
When I think about FEEST, it is kind of loud and chaotic in a fun way. Everyone is just really excited. Everyone is sharing about themselves and their lives. And there are a lot of different ways that everyone is trying to make sure that while we are learning or discussing the political landscape or analyzing things that are affecting youth, we are also playing games, getting to know each other, building community–even online. All of our games have movement aspects, getting our blood pumping, our bodies moving. And just being silly — -ripping up our cool card.
LM: When you say you are building tools for social change, what does that look like? What do you see as possible or shifting because youth have built power in this way?
CJ: In the summer of 2020 our youth said, “We want the police out of our schools.” At that point we joined forces with two other organizations to get police out of Seattle public schools. That was our first really big, really successful campaign. We had gotten a lot of other smaller wins around school food through really working with and partnering with decision-makers and leaders in the schools and school districts, like the nutrition services director , superintendents and whatnot. We are able to get impactful but incremental gains in those ways. The Police Out of Seattle Public Schools campaign was the first time we really flexed the organizing power of FEEST youth. That propelled us into a whole strategic planning process where we really looked at organizing power, the tools we need, and how we replicate going forward.
We partnered with WA-BLOC and Black Minds Matter [Instagram @black.MindsMatter] to get 20,000 signatures and make the school board agree to end the contract between Seattle Public Schools and Seattle Police Department. Initially they wanted to just suspend the contract for the year –which was silly because we were virtual in 2020–but with that power we were able to end the contract formally for the foreseeable future.
We start with a two week summer camp in August. It’s three hours per day really diving deep into political analysis and shared language: What is direct action organizing? What is base building? Why are one-on-ones important? How do we build power? What is power? How does racism affect us? Sexism? Ageism? Ableism? We try to give a strong base of knowledge in the summer camp, then throughout the school year we work on teaching, practicing, and implementing the skills around organizing. We meet after school. On Tuesdays we meet with both districts; we have whole district meetings in which we talk about themes that are happening and broadly plan base-building and our campaigns. Each district has very similar campaigns that they are launching soon –or demands that they will be making–but they do differ slightly. So each campaign is responsive to its context.
Thus far this year we’ve done a listening session at each school district so that youth can hear what issues other students are facing. We then worked to send out a survey that covered the points from the listening session to reach even more folks. From that we have been able to determine that really the issue that is most widely and deeply felt among students and faculty as well is mental health. And so this is a departure from food. We are still doing some work with the city of Seattle around food access and justice, but trying to be very responsive to youth needs and right now mental health resources in schools is the number one need that keeps getting brought up.
LM: Tell me more about direct action and collective power. Can you paint a picture, with a specific story of what collective power looks like?
Cilia: When I think about collective power, I think about getting the Seattle Police Department out of public schools. That was a decision that decision-makers did not want to make. We talk about power being the ability to get someone to say “yes” even when they want to say “no.” FEEST looks at who is in decision-making power, what changes we want, and how do we get enough power for those with power to say “yes” to what we are asking–even if they want to say “no.”
The Seattle Police issue was a big one. For a lot of our food work, folks wanted to say “yes.” It was a matter of logistics, in other words, how do we make food stuff possible together? It was very clear to us with the Police Out of Public Schools campaign that we would be making a purposeful step from advocacy into very specifically organizing.
There are various methods for addressing social problems: social services, advocacy, self-help, research and education. These tend to work within the current power relations. Direct action organizing is another method; it works outside of existing power. Direct action happens when the people experiencing the problem, find the solution, and build power to get that solution implemented. FEEST is in schools to provide support so that youth can take leadership roles. Helping youth to become aware of their own power–the power that they hold individually and as a collective. Ultimately, that will alter the relations of power.
Right now when you look at school boards –the bodies of different groups and committees that make decisions on behalf of the youth in schools–there aren’t many youth voices there. All the decisions have been made without students’ voices or input. How do we change that? We see that’s not working for our students — and not working very specifically for our Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low income students.
So, while food continues to be a focus, the pandemic and our movement into organizing has necessitated the need to broaden from organizing for better school food and food justice to organizing for systems change in schools as a whole.
Youth is a temporary identity. We want them to build power to make changes in their schools, but we know that there are a lot of other systems outside the schools that are harming BIPOC and low income communities and all sorts of various ways. Direct action organizing is the best way to create changes on that scale. So we are trying to train a strong generation of youth organizers to continue this organizing work whether it be through FEEST or other organizations or community groups.
Also, our focus is youth and yet youth can’t vote. A lot of the time some of the power that is needed is voting power. How do we build a really strong base of intergenerational allies and co-conspirators to support our youth-led campaigns?
LM: One of the things that I think is so powerful about FEEST is that you started out as one kind of organization and then not only did you see a particular need and responded to it, but you also developed a more systemic analysis. You were building community through the dinners and then realizing, “We have to help students kick police out of our schools… and we have to respond to mental health.” That’s such a clear example of what organizing means. You are not silo-ing yourselves in a problem and silo-ing yourselves in a solution, but rather responding to the holistic experiences of your base and then designing an organization in response, and continuing to iterate on that. I love that! I feel like that’s what many people don’t understand about organizing.
Cilia: It can be really hard for a non-profit to broaden its mission. FEEST’s Board and all the people working at FEEST were willing to live their values. We want our youth to lead us and make decisions! How do we make sure that they are supported to make decisions? That they understand what these decisions are so that they can run with it and we can follow? How do we build up so that they have everything they need to do this and feel confident in their ability to do so?
It’s been amazing to see youth say, “I’m not doing well and neither are any of my friends. We need to do something else.” We are still growing and learning into it. It is really great to be in an organization that listens to those most impacted and adjusts accordingly. And we’ve seen that organizing is more successful that way. By broadening, by taking on broader intersectional issues, we are able to attract more people, more folks are interested, more are passionate, more youth are excited to share with their friends and family about our work. Teachers are excited. Administration is excited.
LM: Seattle is a unique place in terms of wealth-creation and the rise of tech, what have you found is really unhelpful about how folks are showing up in support or solidarity and what has been really helpful and supportive?
CJ: I think right now that what has been really helpful is folks’s ability to be really flexible with how they are supporting and what their funding dollars are going towards. We are changing and growing and some things go well and some don’t and sometimes we have to go back to the drawing-board and try again. It has been incredibly helpful to have folks who are passionate about youth leadership and youth-led organizing be flexible about how they support that. It has been challenging when we get restrictive grants.
In terms of individual donors, we have a pretty cool, a pretty radical, excited, fun base. We want to see folks show up who are interested and want to learn more about stuff. We are trying to strengthen how we approach our communications to really share what we are talking about, the analyses that we’ve made, the lens that we are viewing it through. It is really great and uplifting and exciting when folks send us notes about our blog posts or the newsletter and say, “I’ve never thought about it that way” or “This is the first I’ve heard of this term.” It’s great to have a community of folks who are learning along with and from us, and are willing to give where it’s needed.
