Robin Mallery

When you talk to Lori Noble, the word “tireless” springs to mind. As the Family and Community Outreach Coordinator at Evansville’s Lincoln Elementary School, Lori is the momentum behind the EVSC’s first food pantry, but Lori’s own experiences with food have been shaped over a lifetime. 

Lori’s education in cooking and nutrition started early, sitting on the radiator in her childhood kitchen and watching her mom prepare meals. “Cooking is a thing in my family,” says Lori, and cooking for a crowd was a skill passed down through the generations. In addition to the meals prepared at home, her mother also worked as a cook at Welborn Hospital. As Lori grew, she was given more responsibility in the kitchen. She vividly remembers her mother instructing her to cut up a whole chicken at the age of thirteen. At the time, “I thought, ‘Are you crazy?!'” but Lori realized how valuable the experience was later on as she was able to use her skills to nourish others, both physically and spiritually. 

As an adult, Lori worked for 15 years in the catering department at Old National Events Plaza and cooked for her own family of eight. On weekends, Lori would regularly help with dinners at her church for up to 50 people at a time, and she says her household hosted holiday dinners for extended family. Despite her then-husband working full time, feeding a large family didn’t always come easily. When money was tight, there were periods when Lori had to rely on food stamps and food pantry boxes to cover the gaps. Lori took pride in being able to stretch what they had to ensure the food was still flavorful and everyone was fed.

Lori’s remarkable work at the EVSC Lincoln School food pantry was known to Urban Seeds before the COVID-19 pandemic arose; but when Lori volunteered with Urban Seeds’ cooked-from-scratch meal initiative in the spring and summer of 2020, her cooking skills became invaluable in making meal preparation happen efficiently for the 350 people served per week. A daunting challenge for some, Lori brought her lifetime of knowledge to turn raw ingredients into crowd-pleasing, satisfying dinners.

Due to having used food stamps and food pantries herself, Lori brings a vital perspective to the Lincoln Food Pantry. “When people don’t have enough to eat, it’s demoralizing,” says Lori. She works hard to assist families that come to the food pantry with a variety of needs. “There are no perfect people. Families are figuring it out as they go.” To that end, Lori provides not only ingredients but educates families about meal preparation and offers a listening ear. “You can’t succeed if you don’t have fuel for your body and mind.” The food pantry ensures that families have that fuel, as well as the dignity and reassurance that comes with seeing one’s children well-fed.

This fall, Lori has begun a new initiative with the food pantry. Inspired by the cooked-from-scratch meals she prepared with Urban Seeds, Lori began to take a closer look at the prepackaged dinners on her pantry shelves. Lori recalls making tuna casserole for 350 people during one of her COVID meal prep volunteer sessions. “Up to my elbows in tuna! I got home and all my clothes smelled like tuna!” That week left an impression beyond the humor of the situation. Lori noted the additives in a typical package of Tuna Helper – a go-to meal for families with limited time and budgets – and “it really bothered me” that freshness and nutrients had been set aside for the sake of convenience. Lori got to work researching 30-minute, stovetop meals for beef stroganoff, hamburger dinner, and tuna noodle casserole to replace the additive-laden boxes of “Helper.” She offered the needed ingredients and one-page recipes to families in the program, and they all accepted. Feedback so far indicates that the recipes are so easy to follow that kids can help prepare the meal and spend time with their families. The scratch dinners also yield larger quantities than a box mix.

Lori works hard to ensure others receive more from the food pantry than she did in her earlier days – specifically, seasonings and fresh produce. Seasonings are essential for mimicking the flavor of those familiar box mixes Lori is replacing, and especially for children, “If the flavor isn’t what they’re used to, they’re not going to eat it.” Most seasonings can be obtained for $1, but make an immense difference in the taste of a meal and in turn, boost the confidence of those learning to cook from scratch. Fresh fruits and vegetables have obvious nutrient benefits, but Lori notices a boost in morale for families as well. Many families who use the food pantry lack the time and transportation to go to the grocery store often, and there are no full-service grocery stores within walking distance of Lincoln School. This makes families excited to enjoy the fresh produce as a special treat.

This fall has brought new challenges to the food pantry as a result of the pandemic. Illness and job loss have left many more families struggling. Lori says she has had families who never needed help in the past come to the food pantry this year. Due to deaths and financial hardship, Lori says more people are combining households, leading to more people under one roof sharing limited food. There are three ways the community can help, outlined below:

1. Donate – financial contributions are always welcome, as well as the following items: 

• jelly
• 1 lb. bags of brown rice
• dry beans – navy and pinto
• tuna packed in water
• elbow macaroni
• medium egg noodles
• canned fruit in natural juice – mandarin oranges, peaches, and pears
• spices – garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, and parsley flakes

2. Volunteer – The Tri State Food Bank has been spread thin during the pandemic, leaving Lori to shop for more items herself. This takes time and energy that she could otherwise spend at Lincoln, so she is hopeful to obtain a rotation of volunteers who can pick up items at the grocery store and deliver them to Lincoln School. Lori will provide a shopping list and payment for the groceries, all volunteers need is time and transportation. 
3. Be inspired, but don’t stop there. It’s easy to see the smiling faces and full bellies impacted by the EVSC Lincoln School food pantry as the inspiring resolution to an entrenched community problem; but the work of Lori and Urban Seeds is to question the systems that have created nutritional insecurity in the first place. What makes a tireless advocate like Lori tired? Lori puts it this way: “Food has been used as a reward and it can be used as a punishment. It is very uncomfortable to live in a place with no grocery stores while more convenience stores pop up all the time.” We all know the term “food desert” to describe a community that lacks access to adequate food resources; but consider the term “food apartheid.” The Lincoln neighborhood is not a desolate wasteland, as implied by a desert, but a thriving, active community full of families who share everyone’s desire to raise secure, nourished, happy children. The difference, then, is where the city wishes to invest. There is money to be spent in the Lincoln neighborhoods; if there was not, the convenience stores and dollar stores would not be thriving. Grocery stores, however, provide a greater social return by offering fresher, healthier options – options which Lori has proven at the food bank lead to improved mental health and academic performance. It’s true that a city bus can take anyone to an area with more options, but Lori is quick to point out the difficulty in hauling a week’s worth of groceries – and often small children – on public transportation during the limited hours the buses run. Cities all over the United States are finding creative ways to bring more nutrition to underserved areas. Evansville has had discussions on just this topic. But for those living with the problem, every day without change is another day of reduced nutrient security and the countless health and social struggles that accompany it. 

The Lincoln School food pantry is an essential community resource, but the ultimate goal is to create a system in which it is less needed. While the wait for a grocery store continues, Lori has begun to grow her own food and is working on plans to start a garden at the school so they can go outside and pick what can’t be obtained at neighborhood stores. “I can do something, here in my area,” says Lori; we are all called to do the same.

To donate or volunteer to the EVSC Lincoln Food Pantry, email Lori at lori.noble@evsck12.com

For those of us who are active in the nonprofit world, that familiar phrase is one way to define the phases of outreach, programming, and community impact. The majority of the work we do in the Food Justice sphere will fall under either a Relief, Recovery, or Restoration umbrella.

The old adage “Give a man a fish…” is the perfect segue to a discussion of The Three Rs, through the Urban Seeds lens.

Our 19-week cooked-from-scratch meal share initiative, begun at the onset of Covid, is a marvelous example of a Relief effort. We saw a need to provide fresh, nutrient-dense meals to children and their families in our community to compliment the foods that were being provided by other agencies and organizations. While we have offered numerous cooking demonstrations and food samplings over the years (which is an example of recovery), we had not undertaken sharing full meals. With the understanding that schools and community food share opportunities, such as pantries, were providing large quantities of shelf-stable packaged foods to students and their families, we jumped in with our version of relief — fresh dinners, prepared from scratch, with a salad or vegetable side dish, an entree, and a piece of fruit for dessert. The meals, prepared lovingly by dedicated volunteers, supported our tenet to “eat the rainbow”, which reflects meals laden with colorful veggies or fruit, and from which we were able to elevate the conversation of another strong commitment for Urban Seeds — embracing our moral obligation to nourish our community with foods that are inherently nutritious as they are less processed than typical shelf-stable packaged foods.

This is a delicate conversation — the contrast of sharing large quantities of processed, packaged foods which are much less expensive than fresh, whole foods in regards to convenience as well as cost. Shelf-stable foods contain preservatives and emulsifiers that can be a detriment to health and well-being, especially in children, but that is what allows them to be stable on a shelf for many months. Mac n’ cheese from a box with the bright orange powdered “cheese” sauce is easy, quick, and affordable to distribute and prepare at home, yet it is high in sodium, food dyes, and adulterated fats. The mac n’ cheese dinner made during our cooked-from-scratch initiative, loaded with fresh veggies and complete with a side salad and a piece of fruit for dessert, cost $2.50 to prepare — for the entire meal. Did it take a few hours to make 350 dinners, pack them up, then distribute them? Yes! Was it worth every moment? Yes! Can we continue to duplicate this effort to truly Nourish Our Community? Yes!

Hunger relief can and does have various choices, with a place for each being integral to community support. Yet, when we rely primarily on the less expensive, more convenient offering of packaged shelf-stable foods, we are not optimizing the current and future health and well-being of the children and their families of our community. We can do better. Hence the delicateness of this nuanced conversation…I am not undermining the substantial value of the relief measures provided by community food share programs (food bank and pantries), but I am inviting us, as a community, to explore and support complimentary relief measures that focus on fresh, whole foods.

Now, the pivot to the compelling mission of Urban Seeds, “To advocate for a quality, equitable, and robust food system, increasing access to healthy, nourishing food for all”. This noble mission, focused on Restoration and Resilience Building, encompasses three pillars:

• Providing education and support to families so that they may gain the tools, skills, knowledge, and motivation to create nourishing family meals at home — economically and with cultural familiarity, fostering resilience through the Trauma Informed framework
• Increasing access to fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, and quality meat & dairy
• Supporting local farmers and food producers

Our signature program, Nourish, is a marvelous example of a true Restorative initiative, and which currently incorporates two of the three above-mentioned pillars. Providing high quality, nutrient-dense foods at wholesale prices to our program members, we are increasing their access to nourishing foods. Many of the Nourish offerings are not available within numerous neighborhoods in the Evansville area because there are no full service grocery stores in certain zip codes. Or some whole foods are seen as being outside of their family food budget. What we have discovered both in our focus group outreach and from studies done across the country, is that increased access to whole foods is only one small part of the opportunity to foster resilient families. The more important restorative piece to this type of initiative is to provide education and support to families so that they can conveniently incorporate whole foods into their weekly meal planning. This is accomplished by building a bridge from which education and support is seen as a partnership, and while classes are facilitated by an organization, the topics are chosen by the participant and in some instances, the classes are often taught by peer educators. This leads to family engagement with an emphasis on culturally familiar flavors, techniques, and traditions. As we cultivate a trusting relationship with our members, Urban Seeds is seen as an authentic presence with the ultimate mutual goal of restoration as the conduit to independence, vibrant health and well-being, and confidence among our membership families.

We are working diligently to engage our local farmers — the third pillar of our mission — into the Nourish program. Due to Covid, we’ve not been able to have as robust of engagement with our member families but we anticipate a resurgence in our impact with the soon-to-occur second cohort of members becoming part of our Nourish participants.

Relief = Give a person a fish
Recovery = Give a person a fishing pole
Restoration =  Teach a person to build a pond so they may raise fish, increasing independence and building resilience for generations to come.

In America’s farming community a 2012 Agriculture Census found that 8 percent of American farmers are minorities; of this 8 percent, less than 3 percent are African Americans. The history of these farmers is long and vibrant.

The Indiana Black Farmers Co-Op is an organization that unites Indiana’s Black farmers in their mission to improve the community through engaging youth, fostering community, and improving food access in the areas that are in need of it. The Co-Op’s members sell their products at the Indiana Black Farmer’s Market in Indianapolis and collaborate to ensure a wide variety of products are available.

Here in Southern Indiana is Lyles Station; one of the last remaining African American settlements in the state. It serves to preserve the heritage of this early 1800’s settlement with it’s museum, programs, and tours. Among it’s history is a tradition of agriculture which remains today.

On the national level is The National Black Farmers Association which represents African American farmers and their families in the United States. It’s education and advocacy have focused on civil rights, land retention, access to resources, agricultural training, and rural economic development.

These groups and the farming communities working alongside them are driving towards the betterment of our agriculture systems, the education of our communities, and improving the connections between farmers and those they serve. In preserving their heritage it carries their legacy into the future.

Read our Fall Newsletter!

Join Us on October 24th, 2019 from 3:00-6:00 pm for the Second Annual World Food Day event!  This free event will be held at Trinity United Methodist Church in Evansville.

Creating a vibrant local foods system – a system in which nourishing food is accessible by everyone in our community – is an ambitious and important goal. A thriving local foods system includes one or all of these opportunities:

~Supporting and purchasing from local farmers and food producers whenever possible.

~Providing education, in a culturally sensitive manner, so our community members understand the benefits of eating nourishing food, as well as the teaching of shopping and cooking skills.

~Growing outreach programs so that no child, or their family, is food-insecure by highlighting government support of food access for all.

~Pooling of food purchase resources for cost-effectiveness.

~Volunteering with a nonprofit or organization that engages in food justice and food access activities, and learning more about our own local foods system in the Evansville area.

When we support our children and their families with the availability of foods that provide the building blocks for healthy bodies and engaged minds, we are all contributing to a strong community.

Food Day is an international celebration of and movement toward more healthy, affordable, and stainable foods systems. Created by the nonprofit Center for Science in the Public Interest, Food Day aims to bring us closer to a food system of access to “real food” that is produced with care for the environment and the animals that are part of our food chain, and the women and men who grow and harvest our food.

Our goal for the Evansville World Food Day is to educate our Evansville area community about how they can be part of a vibrant local foods system by highlighting where, who, and how our food is grown in the Tristate. We want the community to know that nourishing food is available in our area, and we want them to know of the resources available for increasing their knowledge for shopping, cooking, and enjoying nourishing foods.

If your organization or business would like to participate in this free event please email or phone with any questions you might have to Urban Seeds at 812-430-4180 or urbanseeds.org@gmail.com.

The deadline for submitting your application is Monday October 15th, 2019.