Case Study: The ARC

Partners and Community Collaborations

Introduction

Exploring the implementation of a community-supported agriculture (CSA) model in a faith-based community group to help address food apartheid in Atlanta’s 4th Ward, partnering with a local certified organic Black-owned farm.

Direct Quote

Ethel Richards, MScN, MBA, MPH, CPH, LSSGB, PMP, Prosci® CCP
Food as Medicine Symposium, Portland, OR | May 4, 2025

“To state our research objective plainly, we are: Exploring the implementation of a community supported agriculture (CSA)  model in a faith-based community group to help address food apartheid in Atlanta’s 4th Ward partnering with a local certified organic Black-owned farm. If you are wondering what is meant by food apartheid, allow me a few brief moments to explain.

The term “food apartheid” was coined by food sovereignty leader Karen Washington. 

“Food apartheid” is a term used by some to describe the structural injustices and disparities in food access faced by low-income communities and communities of color. It highlights that limited or unequal access to healthy food is not just a geographic problem but is rooted in historical, political, social, and economic systems that perpetuate inequities. (1, 2)

By Definition: Food apartheid refers to a system of segregation that divides those who have access to an abundance of nutritious food from those who have been denied that access due to systemic injustice.  (2)

The term emphasizes that limited access to healthy food is not simply a result of where someone lives but is shaped by racist policies and practices that have created and perpetuated inequities in the food system.  (2)

Impact: Food apartheid can lead to increased rates of chronic diseases in communities that have limited access to healthy food options. (2)

Food apartheid is not to be confused with “Food Deserts”: which describes areas where healthy food options are scarce. “Food apartheid” goes deeper by acknowledging the systemic racism and political power that contribute to these disparities. (3)

In fact, Food Justice Activist Karen Washington says it this way, “What I would rather say instead of “food desert” is “food apartheid”, because “food apartheid” looks at the whole food system, along with race, geography, faith, and economics. You say, “food apartheid” and you get to the root cause of some of the problems around the food system. It brings in hunger and poverty. It brings us to the more important question: What are some of the social inequalities that you see, and what are you doing to erase some of the injustices? (1)

When we Recognize food apartheid it helps us collectively address the root causes of food insecurity and inequity by focusing on the policies and practices that continue to create these disparities. (1, 4)

Today, you will see black food sovereignty in action. I will demonstrate what it can look like to solve food apartheid in a known food desert in metro Atlanta, Georgia’s 4th ward when a little family church partners with a small black farm, and a dynamic Baptist preacher from Baltimore who holds incredible space in the black food justice and black food sovereignty paradigm. Not to mention the cherry on top that came in the form of an energetic preacher’s kid from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania whose favorite holiday is Earth Day and who happens to be a leading intergenerational food as medicine nutrition trailblazer and voice for the 21st century.

Buckle up! Because we are going to have some fun today!”

Sources:
1. Food apartheid: the root of the problem with America’s groceries. Retrieved April 29, 2025 from here.
2. Definition of Food Apartheid. Retrieved April 29, 2025 from here.
3. ‘Food desert’ vs. ‘food apartheid’: Which term best describes disparities in food access? Retrieved on April 29, 2025 from here.
4. What is Food Apartheid? Retrieved on April 29, 2025 from here.

CSA Program Success Metrics:

1. Efficient weekly Sunday pick up process
2. Adequate volunteers for 10 consecutive weeks
3. Favorable community feedback
4. Favorable impact on community
5. Able to pivot with unexpected changes in weather or other events and maintain efficiency

Approach

• Research Design: Observational Descriptive Case Study
• Research Framework: Project management framework
• Research Focus: Developing and implementing a farm-to-table program in a faith-centric community

Project Management Framework

• Initiate: Business Case | MOU | Executive Sign Off
• Planning: Program Development | Volunteer Recruitment | Resource Acquisition
• Execute: Go Live “Sign Ups” | CSA Distribution Period | Volunteer Management
• Monitoring & Controlling: Weekly Distributions | Food Quality | Participant Experience | Volunteer, Core Team, & Contributor Experience
• Close: Retrospective Debrief Meeting | Final Report | Program Blueprint

Direct Quote

Ethel Richards, MScN, MBA, MPH, CPH, LSSGB, PMP, Prosci® CCP
Food as Medicine Symposium, Portland, OR | May 4, 2025

“So, I was very keen on the point of inflection that Ebenezer was in at this moment from a strategic organizational operations perspective. After reviewing their strategic plan, their goals, the consultant reports, and everything to fully understand at least executive mindset and where the church was going, it became clear that the project management framework aligned with the organizational direction of the church, and this project would be a great way to show the church what formal organized or structured programming could look like. The project management framework helps round out and becomes Research Methods.

So, as you can see here there are 5 phases of project management: initiate, planning, execute, monitoring and controlling, and close. What I am going to do at a very high level is walk you through the tailored project management framework for this CSA pilot, this observational study, and then I’m going to move on to the fun stuff.

The reason I highlight this framework and move on is because I do not want the food apartheid solution to get lost in the technicalities of the project management framework, but, if you’re interested in that level of detail then you can book me for a project management session and we can talk about the nuances of how to use project management to set up and manage a program like this for a church using 99.9% volunteer labor.

• In Initiate – there are three main things: business case, MOU, and executive sign off
• Planning is where program development, volunteer recruitment, and resource acquisition took place (ex. Tables, chairs, tents, etc.)
• Execute – is what most of us know as “Go Live!” It is also reflective of the CSA distribution period and the act of managing all of the volunteers.
• Monitoring & Controlling – is what it sounds like – we focused on the act of each weekly distribution, the experiences of everyone involved and the quality of the farm fresh food.

And finally for the Close phase – it is my responsibility to schedule the retrospective meetings, prepare the final report, and unique to this project, create a program blueprint (both of which are underway).”

Solutions

01 Question: What does this data mean? Survey implications?
01 Discussion: Opportunity for more faith community education on a CSA. Continue to communicate, communicate, communicate!

1. I will tell you that I was stunned to get an email the last week and a few survey responses expressing frustration that they still did not know what a CSA was, they just wanted to support Black Farmers.
2. I was also stunned that folks did not know webpages existed which is was communicated each week.

02 Question: Was the project framework successful?
02 Discussion: Yes, for the most part… Organizationally, the direction is program structure and outcome reporting. I chose the project management framework, and I’d say it was successful for the most part. Why? Because churches tend to be ‘mom & pop’ in nature and less structured. Introducing, implementing, and enforcing formalized programmatic structure was met with much cultural resistance. People were not only used to throwing things together, but also not having accountability to tasks. It was a nice inflection point for the church to see the gap in what they desire and parishioner readiness to accept a new level of accountability and structure.

03 Question: Describe “scratching” the surface with change management?
03 Discussion: Organizational readiness, I mentioned a gap in readiness and resistance, which is where implementing change management tools and techniques came into play. There were obvious walls of resistance and non-readiness that were not going to be torn down this time around, however, these barriers of resistance and readiness were lowered such that a next program with accountability and structure will be better embraced.

04 Question: Opportunities for improvement
04 Discussion: 1) Lead internal contact, and 2) Cultural readiness, With this in mind, a key discussion point of the data is to look at opportunities for improvement, and there are two key solutions that would make a second run at any farm-to-table program work more efficiently and effortlessly in a faith community:

1. Having a lead internal contact who already has the relationships and connections to ensure vital resources are ready to go when needed, as one example
2. The culture must be ready, and if not, pastoral or ministerial leadership must be in place to guide the emotional and cultural aspects of implementation facilitating messaging and ongoing engagement with parishioners.

Lesson Learned

Always count the farm shares delivered to confirm the amount slated for the delivery is onsite. This is important to prevent proactive donations of shares in the event the farmers left a bin of shares behind on the farm.

This is a key lesson learned that really can make or break the program.

Conclusion

This observation descriptive case study pilot reveals that communities of faith are ideal locations for CSA programs addressing key needs of food apartheid areas, namely food access, inequity, racism, security, and food sovereignty.

The CSA pilot provides preliminary evidence that faith-based CSA interventions may be beneficial in increasing food access, food as medicine nutrition education, improved health outcomes when measured, and the economic position of local black farmers.

Further research with additional church groups and targeted food as medicine programming can help increase nutrient-dense food access, nutrition education, and reduce the prevalence and onset of common chronic diseases if measured, namely diabetes, heart disease, and obesity, in historically marginalized and underserved communities.

Moral of the Story

Farm-to-Table programs, particularly CSA programs, are relatively easy programs to implement to address not just food insecurity and food access concerns in faith communities but also systemic concerns contributing to food apartheid and associated health outcomes in historically under resourced communities.