Food, Justice, and Leadership in the Bronx
By Emily Willen
We live in an era where our ability to sustain ourselves is becoming more than questionable. From systemic foundations that enforced redlining, the consistent wage gap, chain supply disruptions, ever-rising inflation, health disparities, discrimination against minority populations, and even climate change, it can be overwhelming and daunting to think of what to address or even where to start. All of these things affect us, and what’s more, they more than often intersect. So, where do we start? Often, one might question oneself, “Who can help? Why isn’t anyone doing anything about this?” This is where leadership training comes in because it helps one recognize that maybe you are that someone that can help.
There are many different types of effective leadership. Many believe that good leaders are outgoing, confident, and brave. Although these types of leaders are acknowledged in our society on an everyday basis, this is only one type of leadership. For example, there’s also empathic leadership, which can implement a comfortable and safe space for those within a team or community. This ability for conflict resolution and effective communication can, in turn, promote productivity from others. Suffice it to say that everyone already has leadership qualities.
At the Herbert H. Lehman Center for Student Leadership and Development at CUNY Lehman College in the Bronx, we help students discover their inner leaders. Every semester, we intentionally design a variety of workshops to empower students while at the same time promoting positive and ethical citizenship within their community. We have a wide range of workshops to appeal to many students’ interests, such as leadership narratives through podcasting or the art of storytelling. The most fundamental workshop that we host is Introduction to Leadership, which teaches The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership by Barry Posner and James M. Kouzes.
Leadership training can help students with individual accomplishments. A college is essentially a place where individuals go intending to obtain knowledge to better their lives. However, many employers and companies look for more than just the hard skills one typically learns in a classroom setting. They also are interested in potential employees with leadership soft skills, such as time management, resilience, team building, collaboration, etc. Many of the students at Lehman are first-generation, immigrants, or within a minority population. This type of training significantly helps their outcomes by pushing them ahead with their soft skills. This developmental training also can make positive changes within a community.
Through one of our advanced leadership programs, the Lehman Food Bank was developed in March 2017. Student advocacy resulted in the need for this service for Lehman students. Most recently, our self-survey suggested that around 86% of Lehman students that use our pantry service were worried that household food would run out before their next paycheck. Our food pantry service increased significantly due to demand and need during the pandemic. In part, the Bronx is ranked one of the poorest congressional districts and ranked last in health outcomes within New York’s counties. This is, in part, synergistically affected by the fact that the Bronx is considered a food swamp and that health is strongly tied to nutrition adequacy. Most chronic illnesses are either contributed to or managed through one’s diet. Society fails to realize that sometimes individuals do not have a choice in their food selection based on their location or income.
Our food pantry has helped the Lehman community enormously, but it takes resources to maintain. To go back to the basics, to be sustainable in anything simply means the ability to sustain or endure. What would happen if students graduate since they cannot access the Lehman food pantry? What if resources dwindled? Through strategic collaboration, the Leadership Center developed a pilot program called Food Justice. It was based on the idea, “If you give a man a fish, he eats for a day, but if you teach him how to fish, he eats for life.” This academic year-long program taught essential skills and provided tools that they could bring out into their communities. The program was open to students within all majors, not just those within food or health majors, as these life skills can benefit everyone.
The Food Justice program focused on a variety of topics through prestigious speakers and presenters. We layered in leadership modules so that students can recognize the importance of their contributions to advocacy. Some presenters introduced current advocacy projects around New York City in which students can get involved. Some topics focused on illustrating the history and foundation of foodways in the Bronx, in the hopes that by understanding the past, students can address these issues. Students learned how to conduct quantitative and qualitative research within their communities. A favorite workshop among the students was a series of sustainable cooking demonstrations from professional chefs, where students learned healthy intuitive cooking on a budget. We regularly worked with the New York Botanical Gardens to teach the students how to maintain a community garden on campus, through lessons on composting, garden bed construction, clearing, sowing, etc. We introduced the students to small (food) businesses, registered dietitians, farm school workers, USDA employees, and even celebrity chefs Alice Waters and Kwame Onwuachi. We wanted to give a variety of interests to students so that they could discover their calling.
Students were encouraged to volunteer in the areas of their interest: food distribution with the food pantry (mostly shelf-stable food items), farm stand (fresh, organic fruits and vegetables the Lehman Food Bank purchases from local community farms to distribute to students), the food insecurity resource education within Lehman College, and campus garden maintenance, were just a few of the volunteer opportunities in which our students participated. Many of our students reported that this work was very rewarding since they felt like they were making a difference in their peers’ lives.
Outside of the program, we have already seen positive effects in our students’ lives. Some students were so inspired by some of the workshops offered through the Food Justice program that they started a research club. This club, called Level Up, was built upon the idea of making research opportunities available for all Lehman students. Similarly to leadership skills, potential employees also look for experience within certain fields, which this club aimed to provide the Lehman body. We have had one student who was motivated by our gardening workshops and she started volunteering at her local community garden in Co-op City as well. Another student started working with a registered dietitian to create a peer education program focused on taking control of health through food. We have also had numerous students achieve internships through Bronx Health REACH, The CUNY School of Public Health, and a prestigious urban foodways internship with the New York Botanical Gardens. Some students have reported making career changes with the skills they are learning through this program.
As stated throughout much of this article, leadership training can make a difference in an individual’s life, present, and future, and has a ripple effect on society. The Bronx struggles with sustainability in multiple facets, which leaders can assist in shifting. We all have leadership qualities within us; we just need to discover that we absolutely can make these changes. We can make not only our lives better but our neighborhoods as well. We can build a better future for future generations if we tap into that flame within us. So I ask again, where do you start? Look within yourself, as it starts with you.
About the Author
Emily Willen majors in Anthropology and Dietetics, Food, and Nutrition at CUNY Lehman College. After being awarded the Gilman Scholarship, she completed Sustainable Strategies at Korea University.
She’s taken multiple leadership workshops, including Introduction to Leadership, Innovation and Entrepeursip, Civil and Social Activism, and Documenting Leadership. Through her advocacy, she became a board member of Lehman’s Food Security and Sustainability Initiative Program and a facilitator of the Food Justice Leadership Program.
