Work Plan

Elisa Wilkinson

Blake Stok

SIS 620-002

February 23, 2015

Food Hub Work Plan

Week of 2/23: Due to the snow day on 2/18, our group’s schedule was slightly pushed back. We have rescheduled our face-to-face meeting with Laine Cidlowski from the District Department of Office to do a brief overview to make sure the agreed upon projects meets both the needs of Blake’s class and this class. The meeting will be held on Tuesday 2/24 at 9 a.m. at the Department. In addition, we plan to identify the two cities that we will be using as potential models for D.C.  

Week of 3/2: Have identified the key successes and challenges facing our case study cities. In addition, we will reach out to someone at the food hubs in order to set up an interview with a person in a position of authority to get a better sense of what they feel their successes and challenges are. If the food hub is local, we would like to also set up an in-person interview and hopefully tour of the facility.

Week of 3/9: During this week, we plan to complete the phone/in-person interview with our designated food hubs.

Week of 3/16: This week will be spent organizing our research and notes. A debrief will be given to Laine on the status of the project. We plan to sit down as a team and hash out the major points our research, and begin an outline for paper.

Week of 3/23: Outline of Paper will be finalized and the sections we are responsible for writing will be assigned. Goal: having 1/3 of the paper complete

Week of 3/30: Paper writing goal is to have 2/3 of the paper complete.

Week of 4/6: Paper complete. Begin editing stage. And begin preparation for the presentation.

Week of 4/20:  Finish editing the paper. Completion of PowerPoint for presentation. Potential Presentation week Elisa.

Week of 4/27 Potential Presentation week for Elisa. Present final product to the District.

Goals for the Week of 2/23

This week, Blake and I have set up a meeting with the District Office of Planning, Laine Cidlowski. The meeting was originally scheduled for last Tuesday, but was cancelled as a result of the snowstorm. At the meeting, we expect to have a number of key questions for Laine. In addition, we hope to finalize the scope of the project that meets the needs of both Blake’s class and this class. The meeting will be held on 2/24 at the Office of Planning. After this meeting, Blake and I will then meet later on in the week for a debriefing of the meeting, and to finalize how the scope of the project will meet the requirements for both classes. Moreover, we plan to have identified case study cities that we will use as comparisons for the potential model of the District’s Food Hub. Should our work plan need to be updated, we will do so accordingly.

In terms of what most excites me about the project, I am excited about interviewing the operators of our case study food hubs. I think it is a necessary step for our project. They will have first-hand knowledge of what works and what doesn’t.  In this way, we may receive information that might be missed by solely focusing our research on written articles. In addition, successes and challenges may have changed since the articles we identify have been written. In interviewing an operator of a food hub, we will get the first hand knowledge this project needs. The thing that worries me the most is the unpredictability of the weather. I do not think as team we can afford to have another meeting cancelled. Going forwards, we should have a backup plan should one of our weeks be altered due to weather events. 

Updated Project Proposal

Successful Food Hubs in DC

            Following our initial meeting with Dan Guilbeault at the Department of the Environment, I was introduced to Laine Cidlowski of the Department of Planning, which oversees most of the initiatives related to the DC Sustainability Plan’s food security goals. After reviewing project alternatives with Laine, it was agreed that the most helpful project for the District would recommendations for the creation of successful food hubs.  Food hubs have a number of benefits for the DC community and economy, as well as benefits for the environment. Food hubs primarily focus on building markets for local and regional producers in order to give them access to consumers. Also, Food Hubs create a significant environmental benefit by reducing the number of miles food travels from the producer to the consumer.

            The project will be a comparison between the different types of food hubs that could potentially be implemented within the city. In order to do so, examples from other cities will be examined based on their set up and functionality.  In other words, the main question the project will attempt to answer is: Which elements from other cities’ food hubs could the District use as a template for its own food hubs?  As part of our research, we plan to speak with City Kitchen here in D.C. and food hubs within Maryland. Based on this research my partner, Blake Stok and I will complete a paper with a set of policy recommendations on the best model. It is important to note that my partner is taking AU’s Sustainable Purchasing class and the final paper will also analyze the issue for this lens as well. One important point we expect this perspective to highlight is the potential for reevaluation of 100-mile radius that D.C. has set to define local food.  Our goal is to examine whether the setting of such a localized radius has a negative impact on sustainable purchasing?  The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s “Region Food Hub Resource Guide” will serve as a starting point for understanding what is required in order to build a successful food hub. It is expected that within the next week or two this resource will reviewed completely and a face-to-face meeting with Laine will be scheduled to discuss the project schedule for the rest of the semester.