from “Graffiti & Grub: The Hip-Hop Generation Gets Its
Grocery Store”
Written by: Natalie Doss for Chicago Weekly (the Independent Voice of the
University of Chicago)
True wealth lies in a healthy spirit and body…The idea that healthy living is for the wealthy only is a marketing
ploy, a tool used effectively by chains such as Whole Foods, according to Redmond. She believes that, in reality,
food is cheaper when it’s locally grown. Despite its current character as a status symbol, she says, there
is no reason that healthy food should be limited to the rich…
from “Graffiti and Grub Takes on Food Deserts”
Produced by: Natalie Moore for WBEZ-FM (Chicago Public Radio)
REDMOND: Fresh foods, fresh produce, locally grown, sustainable, organic. But we won’t necessarily
use those words in that way. We’ll use those words in the way that we would organize them and
they would spell S.O.U.L. – sustainable, organic, urban and local.
In her decade of food justice activism, Redmond has found that people don’t like being told what
their food is. And food and language become intertwined. She says awareness around getting people
to eat healthy can take on a tone of condescension.
REDMOND: They don’t want to be social serviced into healthy food. They want to be treated with respect
and dignity when they go into a store. They don’t want to be treated like they’re going into the free clinic.
Redmond says that approach doesn’t work…
from “Organic Oasis in a Food Desert”
Edited by: Curtis Black, Community Media Workshop
Newstip Date: 06-17-2009
Englewood residents and food justice activists will celebrate “the death of a food desert”
when a new food market featuring local and organic produce opens for a community
dinner and fundraiser Friday.
Graffiti and Grub, a project of urban farm pioneer LaDonna Redmond and “hip-hop educator” Wil Seegars,
will open on June 19 for a healthy soul food dinner and a program of performances to celebrate
Juneteenth. They’re raising funds to complete renovations of the store, with a full-scale opening planned
for later this summer.
The store has been ten years in the making for Redmond. In 1999, after her son was diagnosed with
severe food allergies and she couldn’t find organic produce in her own neighborhood, she and
her husband Tracey began their own food garden.
…Today six farm sites in Austin and West Garfield are part of her legacy, along with a program in
which 175 teens will be learning about green technology and installing urban farm sites and individual
home gardens this summer. But her longterm goal was always to open a year-round grocery store.
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