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CULTIVATING CONNECTIONS

Growing Local SC is an initiative of the South Carolina Food Policy Council focused on building a network of organizations and individuals to support South Carolina in getting food from farms and gardens to the table. The goal of the project is to create a cross-sector local food system network aspiring to cultivate a thriving, equitable, inclusive, resilient, and just food economy providing access to healthy food for all. 

About

Growing Local SC | Food System Network

 Growing Local SC is an initiative of the SC Food Policy Council focused specifically on the local food supply chain. The network builds off work done to date and is designed to be reflective of South Carolina's local food system which is a complex web of activities involving the production, processing, transport, and consumption of food.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Growing Local SC is a network focused on facilitating collaboration between organizations and individuals actively engaged in supporting South Carolina's Food System. The Network will 1) connect and cultivate South Carolina’s local food economy, 2) develop a plan centered on addressing systemic inequities in the state’s food system, 3) catalyze action to address farmland loss, 4) increase capacity of the local food system and 5) refine metrics for measuring partnerships. All organizations, individuals and businesses working in the local food system are encouraged to get engaged. How? Join the SCFPC, sign-up for one or both of the Local Food Committees (Urban and Rural), subscribe to the newsletter and follow us on Instagram @GrowingLocalSouthCarolina.

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Necesita ayuda en Español? Email gespinosa@centralmidlands.org 

This project is supported by funds from the 2021 USDA Regional Food System Partnership Grant

Equity, Inclusion, & Access

Growing Local SC celebrates diversity, equity, and inclusion as central to our mission and affirm solidarity with those individuals and groups most socially vulnerable. We actively disavow all racism, xenophobia, homophobia, sexism, transphobia, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, ageism, classism, ableism, and hate speech or actions that attempt to silence, threaten, and marginalize. As a network focused on cultivating a thriving, equitable, inclusive, resilient, and just food economy providing access to healthy food for all, we must first recognize the historic, ongoing, and systemic role that racism has played in our state. As part of this process, we will work to critically understand and address the culture, systems, policies, institutions, and infrastructure that have created our currently inequitable food system.
 

Growing Local SC acknowledges that the place in which we work, South Carolina, is located on the traditional lands of The Catawba Indian Nation, Beaver Creek Indians, Edisto Natchez-Kusso Tribe, Pee Dee Indian Nation, Pee Dee Indian Tribe, Lower Eastern Cherokee Nation, Santee, Sumter Tribe of Cheraw, Waccamaw Indian People, Wassamasaw tribe, Chaloklowa Chickasaw, Southern Iroquois, Natchez, Pee Dee Indian Nation of Beaver Creek, Sewee, Congaree, Wateree, Westo, Waxhaw, Lumbee, Chicora, Winyah, Saluda, Miccosukee and all those others not named but honored in spirit. We acknowledge the painful history and dispossession of the Indigenous Native people of South Carolina and honor the ongoing connection of all Indigenous people past and present to these lands and waters. We welcome and invite all Indigenous communities in South Carolina’s food system to join the network and encourage all members to connect with their local tribal communities.

 

We recognize that many in the South are uncomfortable acknowledging the history of our region but as so succinctly stated by KJ Kearney during the Inaugural Growing Local SC Food Summit, “Uncomfortable for whom?”. Our network honors the desires of those communities most negatively impacted by systemic racism to dictate what is necessary in the process of creating a truly equitable and just food system. The BIPOC members of Growing Local SC have expressed a clear desire for South Carolina to acknowledge and address the historical trauma caused by the legacies of colonialism and structural violence perpetuated which persist currently. We intend to invite our members on a collective journey through critical self-reflection and empathetic dialogue paired with tools and resources to support the network on a path towards healing and growth.

 

Please join us in this path along the continuum of becoming an anti-racist multicultural organization, a journey on which we know will come with missteps, struggles, and growth as we grow together.

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Events Calendar

Thank you for a great event!
SC Local Food Summit 2023

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The Growing Local SC Food Summit is partnering with Clemson New and Beginning Farmer Ranchers program to host a 2-day interactive event for farmers, gardeners,  farm service agencies, and food system leaders in Columbia, SC. August 17th will be the Farmer Resource Rodeo with a Local Food Mixer that evening and August 18th will be the Growing Local SC Food Summit. Organizations, individuals, farmers, policy makers and businesses working in the local food system to gather, connect, learn, and collaborate on building stronger networks in local food systems and engaging in shaping the focus of Growing Local South Carolina and the broader SC Food Policy Council committees. 

Leadership

The project is administered by Wholespire, governed by the South Carolina Food Policy Council, executed and evaluated by contracted project managers (Nikki Seibert Kelley and Alison Pierce), and supported by partners as follows: the SC Department of Agriculture providing financial, programmatic (ACRE), and marketing support; UofSC School of Public Health providing administrative, stakeholder, and food council support; the Rural Resource Coalition as an organizer for gatherings, coordinator of the Local Food Subcommittee, and facilitating a farmland working group, Catawba Indian Nation providing engagement to indigenous communities; Bonita Global providing outreach to African American communities; Ivan Segura and Sarai Melendez providing outreach to Latina communities; SC Food Hub Network expanding mid-tier value chains; and SC State University Small Business Development Center and Carolina Farm Stewardship Association providing technical assistance to food and farming businesses. Check out the leadership team profiles below. 

 

The activities of the network are guided by input gathered at annual meetings and through several stakeholder engagement mechanisms designed to elevate minority voices including the general membership of the South Carolina Food Policy Council and its committees (interested individuals and organizations are encouraged to apply). The project prioritizes strategies to fill food systems gaps, meet stakeholder needs, and facilitate market opportunities and food access solutions.

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Please note the organizations and individuals listed represent the leadership structure built into the grant but the project is committed to continuously expanding the network leadership to include many other food system organizations.

Meet The Team

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Florence Anoru

SC State University | SC Food Policy Council Board Member

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Jesse Blom

Green Hearts Project | SCFPC Board Member

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Michael Brown

Roots of Life & Sustaining Way | SC Food Policy Council Board Member

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Bonita Clemons

Bonita Global LLC

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Carrie Draper

UofSC School of Public Health

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Alissa Duncan

 PAL: Play. Advocate. Live Well! | SC Food Policy Council Board Chair

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Sarai Melendez

Community Organizer | Hispanic/Latino Outreach Growing Local SC

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Paola Gutierrez

SC Office of Rural Health | SCFPC

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Ken Harvin

SC Association of Community Economic Development | Rural Resource Coalition | SC Food Policy Council

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Zach Herrnstadt

UofSC School of Public Health

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Jim Johnson

SCSU Small Business Development Center Orangeburg | Midlands Local Food Collaborative

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Nikki Seibert Kelley

Growing Local SC Network Director
| Wit Meets Grit

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Matt Kneece

Carolina Farm Stewardship Association | SC Food Policy Council

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Miko Pickett

Pick 42 Foundation | SC Food Policy Council Board Vice Chair

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Ashley Page Bookhart

UofSC School of Public Health

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Alison Pierce

SC Food Hub Network Coordinator

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Kyle Player

SC Department of Agriculture ACRE Program | SC Food Policy Council Board Member

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Ivan Segura

SC Commission for Minority Affairs | SCFPC

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Meg Stanley

Wholespire

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Amy Weaver

UofSC School of Public Health | Food is Medicine Subcommittee

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Carolyn Prince, PhD

Mayor of Bennetsville, SC | SCFPC

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Aaron
Baumgardner

Catawba Indian Nation

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DeLesslin "Roo" George-Warren

Catawba Indian Nation
Citizen

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Katie Lambiasi

Catawba Indian Nation

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Phillip Ford

Wholespire | SCFPC

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SC Food Hub Network

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Weatherly Thomas

Clemson Extension | SCFPC

Growing Local SC builds off of a variety of other collaborations and projects, several of which are listed below.

SC Food Policy council

The SC Food Policy Council strives to advance the production and consumption of healthy foods in South Carolina through education and strategic policy planning. Anyone interested in Food Systems in SC can join as a member for free to stay up to date on Growing Local SC and more.

SC Food Hub Network

A group of established food hubs in SC passionate about cultivating a relationship based food system that provides local farmers with personalized resources and markets while ensuring customers are able to secure source identified food traced from harvest to market.

SC Farmer resource guide

The South Carolina Farmer Resource Guide exists to help farmers in South Carolina find the information, resources, and services necessary to operate their businesses.

SC Local Food System Roadmap

The SC Local Food System Road Map project developed as a tool to help those working in the state’s food system to understand how the state’s food system is changing and know what, where, when, who, and how food is (or is not) getting from “A” to “B”. 

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