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What are we doing about this at Chicks Ahoy Farm?!? 1. Expand access to affordable, fresh food, such as poultry eggs, during the winter for underserved families. 2. Keeping Basic Human Needs and Harm Reduction supplies on hand for families and retail store staff 3. Organizing a broad base of people to protect us all and work towards solutions to these problems in Connecticut Our CoOp2kitchen program provides real food purchased from Connecticut Farmers located in Manchester, Hartford, Middletown, and Meriden. C2K provides food and harm reduction supplies to families, seniors, and community members throughout Hartford, Middlesex, and New Haven Counties through our Pop Ups. If you are a farmer, provider, producer, or grower of something helpful to people, please consider working with CoOp2kitchen. Vendors can sign up here! We offer a variety of products, including homemade bar soaps, laundry sheets, coupons, hygiene products, and harm reduction supplies, as well as informal case management and human services. Additionally, we provide community organizing training and support to help you self-advocate for these issues in your community. Here are some articles and data on the problem we are facing: USDA Terminates Redundant Food Insecurity Survey (Washington, D.C., September 20, 2025) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced the termination of future Household Food Security Reports. These redundant, costly, politicized, and extraneous studies do nothing more than fuel fear. For 30 years, this study—initially created by the Clinton administration as a means to support the increase of SNAP eligibility and benefit allotments—failed to present anything more than subjective, liberal fodder. Trends in the prevalence of food insecurity have remained virtually unchanged, despite an over 87% increase in SNAP spending between 2019 and 2023. USDA will continue to prioritize statutory requirements and, where necessary, use the bevy of more timely and accurate data sets available to it. https://www.npr.org/2025/09/22/nx-s1-5549115/usda-food-insecurity-survey-hunger "SNAP benefits, and the resulting rise in food insecurity, is the likely motive behind the Trump administration scrapping the report. "This will substantially increase food insecurity, and unfortunately, that will make itself clear in the data of food insecurity reports in the next couple of years," Ross said. The USDA did not respond to questions from NPR about the reasons behind the report's cancellation." Household Food Security in the United States in 2023 An estimated 86.5 percent of U.S. households were food secure throughout the entire year in 2023, with access at all times to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members. The remaining households (13.5 percent, statistically significantly higher than the 12.8 percent in 2022) were food insecure at least some time during the year. Very low food security is the more severe range of food insecurity where one or more household members experience reduced food intake and disrupted eating patterns at times during the year because of limited money or other resources for food. In 2023, 5.1 percent of households were very low food secure, an estimate that is statistically similar to the 5.1 percent in 2022. Commission on Women, Children, Seniors, Equity, and Opportunity 2024 Food Security Annual Report (CWCSEO), it is our pleasure to present our 2024 report on the state of food insecurity in Connecticut, reflecting our commitment as mandated by Public Act 23-204. This report comes at the conclusion of the Commission’s first year with a Food & Nutrition Policy Analyst on staff, and is the product of publicly available data and academic research. Additionally, we endeavored to incorporate lived experience and community feedback through 107 individual and small group meetings, a survey of food organizations that collected 162 responses, and presentations to local food collaboratives across the state. #CoOp2kitchen is a mutual aid project collaborating with CT Farmers and vendors to provide food, necessities, and informal case management to those in need. Chicks Ahoy Farm's cohort of youth, women and BILPOC farmers, FLOC (Farmers & Leaders of Color) and residents in Hartford, Middletown, Bloomfield, Portland, and Cromwell have come together to create an Advisory Committee for c2k to review potential agreements for supplies and items. Complete the C2K Vendor Sign Up Form to become a vendor for CoOp2kitchen. Contact us at C2K@chiksahoyfarm.org if you would like to volunteer or make a donation to the program.

Middlesex County NAACP Connecticut This focus group confidentiality interviewed--in both English and Spanish, as individuals or in groups, in person or virtually--30 residents of Middlesex County who identify as Latino/a/e, and asked about their health concerns, needs, and wants. This is a supplement to a 2019 study with Black/African- American residents of Middlesex County. The objectives and outcomes are summarized below.

Jul 28, 2024  #farmersprotest #justiceforblackfarmers #blackfarmers 93 views • Jul 28, 2024 • #farmersprotest #justiceforblackfarmers #blackfarmers This 30-minute video contains highlights of a panel discussion of the continuing struggles for truth and justice by Black farmers and some for US Department of Agriculture (USDA) employees. In addition, this video puts a name with a face of some of the farmers and friends who ares struggling in their fight for fairness and equity against the USDA. The video also pays tribute to a partial list of farmers, employees, advocates and supporters who have died over the years. #justiceforblackfarmers #blackfarmers #farmersprotest 2024 Whistleblower Summit Panel Discussion (July 2024),https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xymo9ZNTGbU

Gary Johnson Media Group Sep 1, 2022  #blackfarmers #justiceforblackfarmers #blackmeninamerica How many of us know a full-time Black farmer? Someone who farms for a living? Black Farmers are distant from most people. Unless you personally know a Black farmer, you don't have a link or emotional connection...until NOW! Farmer Bernice Atchinson talks about her experience with the US Department of Agriculture. This conversation was taken from the "Speak The Truth" show recorded on August 28, 2022. #blackfarmers #justiceforblackfarmers #blackmeninamerica #speakthetruth, #anameandaface\ QM Bernice Atchison lost 278 acres of land because if the USDA discrimination. A Name and A Face - (Supporting Black Farmers),https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ewhpnBPNpA

Making Biogases with waste that can be used to make renewable energy. Cameroon Green Girls Project,https://youtu.be/HN1M-8rj-8M?si=6PHZur576MEx-7eh

"The civil rights movement emboldened many black farmers to join cooperatives. It may have also provoked more discrimination by white-owned businesses against black farmers in commercial dealings. But, discrimination in some cases induced cooperative formation. In a time of interracial tensions, bulk purchasing of farm supplies or assembling member products for consolidated transactions enabled black farmers to minimize the frequency of their individual interactions with white merchants and product brokers. Cases of this mechanism are documented, where farmers’ access to supplies or markets were blocked when they were known to be members of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)."

To think I started my farming journey by accident. All it took was a seed,dirt, and lots of love to grow.

This EggUcation Learning Series includes classroom time, chicken keeping materials, and supplies. The course is taught primarily by Pr5of Amy Grillo with follow up support and coaching for new chicken keepers. Karin's Growing Power '24 Chicken Keeping Presentation

Register for Growing Power ’25 today! "In Connecticut, individuals who identify as Black, Indigenous and people of color, or BIPOC, account for less than 2% of local farmers. A new state program funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is working to increase that number – by training farmers, and supporting their land access." Published December 4, 2024 at 3:47 PM EST Connecticut Public Radio By Michayla Savitt Our list of workshops and presenters is growing every day, and includes sessions on: Growing and Compost, Chicken Keeping, Freshwater Fishing, Beekeeping, Organizing, and more!  Formal schedule coming soon, stay tuned!