Miranda Interview
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[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to the source for activism theory and practice, you are listening to Activist HQ, the nonprofit podcast making activism accessible for all causes. Today’s guest is a recipient of our Impact Grant, which you’ll be hearing about shortly. This interview was actually recorded last year but has been in the editing back burner since, so please do follow up with Melissa and The Florida Food Systems Coalition to check out all the progress they’ve made since! Thanks for listening, this is Activist HQ.

Tomer: Okay. Well, hello Miranda, do you wanna go ahead and introduce yourself? Yeah. Hi, I'm Miranda Martin. Im a current resident of Gainesville, Florida and part of the food or Gainesville. Thank you so much for having me. No, thank you. Thank you for joining. So you mentioned the Food Systems Coalition of Gainesville and it's actually how I got to, to meet you through, you know, the context [00:01:00] of your.

So do you wanna tell us a little bit about. 

Miranda: Absolutely. So the FSC is a group that first met in June of 2019. After a lot of people in the community expressed a, a desire to have a way to get together and talk about a lot of the work that was going on in the city and surrounding areas around food systems work.

And so there was a lot of desire to make sure we weren't duplicating efforts, share resources, share knowledge. So we started meeting and really the mission of the group is to improve the accessibility, justice, and sustainability of our local food system. And so a lot of what we do now, you know, it, it took a little while to sort of figure out what our.

Purpose on Identity was as a group. And what we've sort of settled into is really a networking and information sharing organization. We're not part [00:02:00] of any singular institution. You know, we don't have any operating budget in and of ourselves. We've got people from all, all different institutions and Interested people in the community like me who just really wanna do this work.

So now we are focused on sharing information about needs, assets, barriers, and let's learn with respect to our local food system and collaborating on solutions that are contextualized to our community. So it's a really exciting thing to be involved with, for sure. Yeah. So how did you, how did you come up with the idea.

For this, How did, how did your network actually come together to, to create and settle on this, this this network of, of groups rather than one institution? Yeah. Well you know, I can't claim any personal credit actually at all. I became involved with the group through Carissa Raskin, who is now the supervisor of the civic [00:03:00] collaboration supervisor at the city.

And she has been really instrumental in bringing people together and also holding conversations, you know, before I was even involved holding conversations with people about. They were envisioning in terms of how to move forward. And so, you know, after we kind of convened and got everyone together, it's just been sort of an organic process of kind of trying some things out, trying out some different structures, getting some feedback from members on how things are going, and just figuring out where people were getting the most value out.

Meeting and you know, the, the things that we really wanted to preserve long term. And so definitely the networking, networking and information sharing piece of it was one of the things that people were getting the most out. Mm-hmm. . So I see on the website that you guys have a variety of [00:04:00] events coming up over October and and November, and a lot of them have to do with engaging a variety of stakeholders with city council meetings and policy initiatives.

Can you, can you talk to us about some of those events and, and how they're related to the work of the Food Systems Coalition? Yeah, absolutely. And so you mentioned the, the website and that. Has been one of the ways that we. Sort of expanded our capacity to share information. And definitely the events calendar is one of them.

And it, that's actually been one of the features that people have been interacting with the most. Cause we actually have our Zoom link available on. Our calendar. So, you know, one of the goals was to reduce barriers to entry for people to get involved with the group. And so, you know, you don't have to be on a specific calendar invite.

You don't necessarily have to know anyone who's already [00:05:00] involved. In order to get the information to join, you can actually just go to the website, sign up, and then you'll get an email and a reminder with the Zoom link so you can join and get involved. The meetings are open to everyone. And so that's been something that I think has been really beneficial about the launch of this website over the course of this past year, is that it provides a space for people to, you know, get involved with those.

With those opportunities. You know, and another way is basically just to, you know, share information about what's going on. We have another area of our website where folks in the community who wanna share information can either, you know, share volunteer opportunities that we'll post share events.

Share you know, resource updates that we can post as well. And so that's where a lot of this information that you, you're seeing in the event calendar is coming from is just sort of either, you know, organically people will go to the website and submit [00:06:00] things or they'll email either me or at the city and ask us to share and post Carissa is the, the other person.

Works a lot on the website and she's got a lot of a lot of important information about things that are going on. You know, that policy convening that you mentioned that came, really came through Carissa. She does a lot to make sure that people know kind of what's going on and some opportunities to engage specifically with food systems related meetings and convenings around the city.

Mm. So I'm also looking around the website and one thing I love is that you guys actually broadcast volunteer opportunities, so that way, you know, people don't just need to, you're not just breaking down barriers to people getting involved in a, in a dialogue, but also for people getting involved in meaningful work.

Do you wanna talk to us a little bit about the opportunities that people can explore there? Yeah, absolutely. That's actually one of our newer features to [00:07:00] the website and one that I'm really excited about. So one of, you know, one of them on there is the free grocery store, which is a really amazing organization here in Gainesville that gets donations of groceries from, you know, places like Bread of Mighty and just in the community and then actually has a group of people that receive food at home.

And so, you know, To, you know, try to deify a lot of the food. You know, basically give it out to people for free. The, there's walk up availability at the free grocery store. And also, you know, for people who either don't have the time or don't, you know, have limited transportation are able to, you know, get those deliveries from volunteers right to their door of, you know, a.

Fruits and vegetables, canned foods, meats, breads, you know, all kinds of different things. The volunteers that talk to deliveries [00:08:00] really try to tailor what people get to their preferences and their needs, and also give them, you know, a really kind of balanced selection. So that's been something that I'm personally really excited about in the city and so glad that we're able to try and spread the word about.

Another is a farm that me, you know, wanted some people to help do the harvesting. So there's opportunities for people to, you know, kind of get involved with seeing, being how farming is done, and then actually get involved with some of our local growers. . And then there's also a another farm, a nonprofit urban farm that is specifically growing through for underserved families in town.

And so those are, you know, the first three opportunities that we have up there right now. And we'll be, you know, updating and sharing new ones as they come out. We recently, very recently just started doing a monthly newsletter where we can let people know. [00:09:00] You know, what the resource updates have been.

And also, you know, continuing to remind people about these volunteer opportunities that are available as well as, you know, things like upcoming events, new resources that we have up there. So, yeah, we're definitely, you know, really excited to be able to help groups, kind of advertise for the volunteer help and opportunities that they.

Wow. And some other amazing features to the website are that you guys offer online resources like a, a list of various farmers markets in greater, in the greensville, greater, sorry, in the greater Gainesville area that people can go to their time contact. Also other resources. You have a small farmer's practical guide to food safety.

Where do you, where do you see this online resources list kind of moving in the course of the next. Yeah, absolutely. I am really hoping that we will be [00:10:00] seeing a lot more submissions of, you know, people that maybe produce reports you know, about specific things that they're working on in the community, and we can kind of share some of the work that's been going on in some of the outcomes of that work.

So that, you know, people can. A little bit more informed about what other groups are doing, what other other groups have found, you know, in our community. One big kind of concern with, you know, especially having the university here is a lot of survey fatigue and, you know, asking, you know, people answering a whole lot of questions.

You know, we wanna make sure that if people are taking time out of their day to answer questions. You know, maybe a food bank or a non-profit that they are involved with in terms of, you know, receiving resources or participating with some of the things that they have going on. You know, we wanna make sure that the information that they share.

Is used as much as possible you know, to reduce duplication of efforts and, you know, move us towards [00:11:00] real solutions and kind of get us outta some of the institutional silos that it's really easy to kind of fall into sometimes. So that's what I'm really hoping will be useful about that space is to, you know, for, for people to be able to.

Their findings here and share them with others and be, you know, for people to be able to kind of search for keywords. And it, you know, it doesn't have to be list, you know, limited to local focused resources. There's, you know, obviously the small farmer's practical guide, so you know, if there is a farmer who's kind of looking for resources that are available.

You know, for agency loans, for example, they can find that there as well. So I'm hoping that, you know, over time this will become a more and more robust place for people to identify both resources and information that they might be looking for. Yeah. Well this has been such a, so much that we've [00:12:00] covered, but I wanna know how, how's the org, How have your how has your work been impacted by the covid?

Has it slowed you guys down? Has it made it more difficult, or do you find that the Covid pandemic actually opened up people's awareness to how important having online resources are rather than having, you know, infrastructure, which is more social and more physical. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Yeah. It definitely, it's had an impact.

The SSC as a group, originally were, were meeting in person. And so when the Covid pandemic hit, we had to go online. So, you know, there was definitely a degree of loss, I think when it comes to, you know, losing some of that person to person interaction and some of the networking opportunities that you know before and, Be sort of more, not formal, but more structured discussions that we might be having as a group.

So definitely it, it [00:13:00] definitely changed the sort of nature of the group and I think that was one of the things that sort of actually pushed us more towards information, you know, an information sharing purpose of the fsc because it was a little bit harder for everybody to sort of, In tune with what was going on.

But you know, like you mentioned, at the same time, I think it did highlight some of the importance of having multiple ways for people to engage because now we need on Zoom, you know, some people will be calling in from their cars, some people will be joining just for, you know, a short time and you know, can't join.

From the, for the whole meeting. And it also, you know, is easy for people to get the Zoom link from, you know, having the website available. So definitely it's had an impact. It's, it definitely did slow us down for a while and [00:14:00] had been a little bit of a challenge, but ultimately I think moving forward we will be.

Pretty conscious about being able to provide lots of different ways for people to engage. And, you know, even before the, the Covid 19 pandemic, having a synchronic ways for people to be involved I think was really important because a lot of the key stakeholders in our local food system, farm farmers, farm workers, food services workers often don't have the.

During the day to join a two-hour meeting. And so being able to post our notes on and ma make them completely publicly accessible to everyone provides another way for people to engage, even if they can't make the meetings. We have discussion, you know, like c a comment section on each of our. So if people want to engage that way they can, you know, post comments about [00:15:00] what's going on.

They can contact us through the website if they want to. So definitely it's kind of pushed us to expand the ways that we provide for people to engage. For people that want to, that wanna engage with you guys on a volunteer basis that wanna get involved, particularly maybe through you know, virtual or asynchronous opportunities.

Are you guys looking to expand your, I guess talent infrastructure , and open up opportunities like that to the public? Because I noticed that you guys have lots of opportunities available with other organizations, which is, you know, very much in line with your mission. But what about for what you guys are trying to.

Yeah. Yeah, that's a really interesting question. Because the, the pre coalition is sort of a unique entity in that it doesn't really have a sort of structured or specific membership. You know, it's really open to, [00:16:00] The main thing that we do is, you know, have these monthly meetings and information sharing.

You know, follow up with providing information on the website as well. So that is sort of the main function of the group at this point. There's, no like staff or particular roles within the group other than, you know, Carissa and I work on the website. Just, you know, having been sort of the, the people that.

Got involved with the Tangency Foundation, who were extremely grateful for, for the grant to do the web hosting and purchase the domain name. And Carissa is sort of the person who kind of keeps us, keeps us on track in terms of scheduling the meetings and making sure that. You know, we meet regularly bringing in people who might give presentations.

But other than that, there's not sort of a formal structure or a specific set of volunteers. One thing, you know, [00:17:00] in, in, in terms of opportunities for people to get involved, you know, especially in the North Central Florida area specifically is, my, one of my future goals for this website.

To expand our editorial team and also sort of engage folks in coming up with a set of community agreements and editorial standards specifically to ensure that all con, you know, all of our website. Serve to achieve equity rather than reproduce the very inequities that we seek to address as a group. So far it's sort of been, you know, whatever information you have, let us know about it and we'll share it.

And it's been working great so far. As the website becomes more well-know you know, I could foresee potentially there being some. You know, for example, a corporate [00:18:00] interest that might get, you know, interested in sharing opportunities or information through the website. And we would wanna, I think we would wanna be really intentional and sort of critical about some of the requests that we might get to share information to make sure that its purpose is fundamentally to.

Inequities that we see in the city, rather than, you know, put up more barriers or make, kind of, make things harder for people to access and fresh food and also achieve food sovereignty within the local area. So I think that's something that we will be kind of looking to do in the future to really create a set of intentional standards.

The way that we report information and the kinds of information that the community really values on this platform. So definitely that's not something that one [00:19:00] particular person should do. And you know, one thing that's always in the back of my mind, as the person who really works to facilitate this website, , you know, wanting to prevent sort of gatekeeping and, you know, one or or two people really having the.

Individuals say so for what information is valuable and not. So that's gonna be a task that I think is gonna sort of, sort of be all hands on deck in terms of getting input from lots of different perspectives and lots of different people who are involved in the local food system to make sure that we're really a, a community focused space, both online and within our meetings.

That's definitely something that, you know, if there's people in the North central Florida area who are really kinda interested and excited about that and, you know, having these conversations about how we can, you know, how, how information sharing can facilitate [00:20:00] achieving equity within our food system, then yes, absolutely.

We could definitely use that help. I think you know, either as an advisory board, If, if people wanna actually get involved in actively updating the website I think that would be, that would be awesome. Yeah. You guys have such an immense variety of resources on the website and looking through the posts.

I could definitely see a lot of value that, you know, volunteers could bring to the table. Do I wonder, do you have do you have any idea of the kind of Of the space for micro volunteering in this area. Do you see like there being a future for micro volunteering to be integrated? If you're familiar with micro volunteering, I'm just kind of throwing around that word, assuming that you're saying No, actually I've heard that before.

So micro volunteering is it's a new trend in volunteering. Some people think it's, it's maybe not the most effective. So micro volunteering is when individuals are able to use a small amount of time, say a couple minutes, and contribute that to organizations so that way they can, they can not have to [00:21:00] sacrifice a lot of time. If they do want to help but still find ways to do it in an impactful way.

And an example of that is like, be My eyes, an app where if a blind person or someone who's visually challenged needs help identifying things, for example, , is this the red sweater or the black sweater? They can open up the app like, Hey Siri, open up, Be my eyes, and it'll open it up and then it'll ping , all the people that have the app downloaded as volunteers.

And the first one to answer , kind of like Uber will be able to like, get on a video call with them and answer a quick question for them. You know, something like that. Or perhaps filling out small survey. Do you think that in, in you know, the Food Systems coalition's future, there might be room for of Greater Gainsville. There might be room for integrating micro volunteering opportunities.

That's really interesting and something I've not thought about before. You know, when it comes to the website, I could definitely see, you know, there being some sort of small tasks that if people were on the editorial team, they.

[00:22:00] Potentially you know, take on like a quick edit of a post, for example. You know, working on our search engine optimization, you know, making some like small changes and creating metadata for the posts so that people can find us more easily on the website. That is definitely the first thing that that comes to mind.

I think with that, there would need to be, you know, for, for those volunteers, definitely a. Long term commitment, you know, even if, if it's not, you know, hours and hours at a time in a single section or a single session of volunteering, You know, a lot of this stuff that we're doing is really focused around building, building relationships and building connections and connecting ourselves a little bit more deeply with the community as a whole.

C And so I think that, If someone was to be part of the editorial team, there would need to be a degree of commitment to those relationships and really understanding [00:23:00] what it is that folks in, in the community are really asking for and things that people might be interested in. So I think it's sort of a, a both and in terms of, you know, having that long term commitment to community.

As well as being able to, you know, do some, some quick tasks to make sure that the website is what the community really wants it to be. Mm-hmm. . And I was wondering is there anything else that we haven't touched on that you wanted to, that you haven't been given a chance to, like, you know, talk about and share that you wanted to, to discuss?

Sure. I mean, you know, I mentioned earlier the Tangency Foundation. We got a, a mini grant to. Launch this website, host the do the web hosting for three years and also actually do a community review where we give gift cards to folks who do a critical review of the site. So just. Really grateful for the opportunity.

I mean, that's, you know, that's the reason that we're able [00:24:00] to have this platform in the first place. And so it's, it was a really exciting opportunity for us. The community review is ongoing. We actually still have four compensated Opportunities for folks who live in the North central Florida area to do the review of the site.

And you know, it's sort of definitely a, a continuous improvement process. And this is not the, definitely not the final version of what it's gonna be. And I'm hoping that we can really expand a lot of the key functions of this website as we move forward. But, Yeah, just really, really grateful for the opportunities to provide this online space.

Tomer: Well, we're just happy we, were able to, you know, help contribute to this amazing platform. And we do hope that as, as you know, we, we move forward. We do get to continue seeing as the, or continue to watch this, this platform grow, especially with all the ideas that you have in [00:25:00] place to implement in the future. It's exciting to see how it's going to grow.

Miranda: I am curious though, do you think that it would be like beneficial to, to, you know not incorporate but become a non-profit, that it might lend the city a bit more accountability on your end?

Yeah, we, we have actually. So that was part of the process of like figuring out what our identity was a group, and we talked about that possibility of, you know, being a specific entity and it definitely would have its benefits in terms of like actually being able to apply for grants, for example, as the Food Systems Coalition, you know, at the federal and state level and also, potentially collect donations and have like an operating budget. But some of the resistance that that idea got was that was the specific, you know, issue of [00:26:00] date keeping. And you know what tends to happen a lot of times, you know, from. Based on what I've heard from non-profit leaders who have been involved is that it, it gets a little, it can get competitive.

You know, when you have a bunch of groups basically competing for the same pot of money. And so I think people were more interested in having this space to be a way for people to collaborate and actually, you know, have like a non-profit. Potentially be the lead on a grant, which is what happened with Grace Grows, actually got a s d community food planning grant which emerged outta conversations that happened within the fsc.

And you know, there's, there's some different organizations and community partners that are involved in that. And so that is the direction that a lot of people. Who were involved [00:27:00] in those conversations wanted to take you know, to, to sort of remove that aspect of sort of competing for money. And I, I'll almost sort of take the, the money imperative out of it and make it a little less central than it would be if, you know, we were a group with a specific operating budget, if that makes sense.

So, yeah, not, not to say that it's not gonna happen in the future. You know, especially,

, I could see in the future, around like the website task if people want to, Sort of formalize and expand the structure around, you know, the creating website content. I think that would be an area where it would be good to, create some more specific roles.

Right now, you know, it's, it's Cara and me working on the website because we have the time and the interests, mm-hmm. , you know, but I'm really hoping. , we can sort of make a larger team of it in the future. So definitely I think that [00:28:00] conversation will be on the table table depending on the direction and that it takes moving forward.

But yeah, that's a little more the, the context of about like why the group is what it is. Mm-hmm. 

Tomer: Are you, have you guys used like VOMO or Volunteer Match or one of those, like plat, have you thought about that before? in terms of maybe finding, you know, people that are like committed to writing and maybe wanna get involved in that space?

Miranda: That's a, Yeah, I mean, that's a great idea. No, we haven't thought about that before. But yeah, I think that would be a great next step in terms of especially engaging people who might not already be involved in the meetings. You know, we'll always put out the plug of like, you know, if you have information to share, if you have feedback on the website, if you wanna get involved reach out to us. You know, but I think a lot of people who are are involved right now, sort of feel pretty overwhelmed in terms of the other stuff that they are working on and that they have to do. So I'd love [00:29:00] to kinda expand the ways that we reach people in terms of being able to actually be actively involved in the site.

So you said, VOMO, I love them. Okay. Because from what I've seen, and I've also spoken to a representative they actually offer like incentives for volunteers that don't, that are not coming out of the pocket of the organization. I don't actually understand the, the, the business model that they have, but essentially volunteers that they volunteer like 40 hours a week, they get it, like a $20 gift card to like Amazon or something.

And it, it's like, it's, it's not at the expense of the organization. That's pretty cool. I've not heard of that before, but yeah, I should definitely look into. Yeah. So I mean if, if that, you know, if that helps, that'd be, you know, I feel like that might be, you know, one route to explore if you haven't heard of that one before.

Yeah. I mean, that might be a cool thing for us to kinda offer to organizations that wanna advertise for volunteers on our website too. Mm-hmm. You know, to put those volunteer opportunities [00:30:00] up there as well. Yeah. Thank you. No, of course, of course. You know, I wish I could be more help. I really love the work that you guys are doing, but

Yeah, you've been, you've been a huge help. Awesome. Well anyways, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me. I really appreciate it. Likewise. Thank you so much. It was great to talk to you. 

You’ve been listening to Miranda Martin talk about the Food Systems Coalition of Greater Gainesville. Check out the show notes for info on how to reach her, and how to learn more about this project and how to get involved. If you are looking to raise awareness about a cause close to you, or have some questions you’d like me to answer, please reach out to Activist HQ through the contact in our show notes or on our website. See you next time!