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This
Month's Feature
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Good
Neighbor program awareness poster.
Credit: Literacy for Environmental Justice.
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Good Neighbors
San Francisco youth transform their Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood…one corner store at a time.
Situated at the top of
a hill overlooking the San Francisco Bay,
the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood has
one of the most beautiful views in San Francisco—and
one of its most controversial histories.
Rates of cervical and breast cancer in
Bayview-Hunters Point are higher than in
any other part of San Francisco, and hospitalization
for congestive heart failure, diabetes,
and hypertension is more than three times
the state average.
Bayview-Hunters Point struggles with food
insecurity; purchasing fresh, healthy food
is an exercise in ingenuity. If you want
to go to one of the closest grocery stores,
prepare yourself for an hour-and a half
long, two-transfer bus ride. If you choose
to shop in the neighborhood, your best option
is the bodegas or corner stores.
“Some of the packaged food was expired,
the fresh food was wilted,” says Erin
Yoshioka, the Youth Envision Program Manager
at Literacy for Environmental Justice. “There
is a great need to provide access to healthy,
fresh food in Bayview-Hunters Point. We
started to think, ‘How can we do this
without taking away business from the corner
stores?’”
That simple question spawned LEJ’s
Good Neighbor Program. Developed by LEJ
in partnership with the San Francisco Department
of Public Health and local advocates, the
city-sponsored Good Neighbor program would
partner with community-based organizations
to reduce tobacco and alcohol advertising
and sales at corner stores and increase
the amount of fresh, healthy food.
Read more...
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