Nearly 18 years ago, around the time that Michele’s Granola was born, I had the incredible opportunity to be part of the founding of the Crossroads Farmers Market, alongside two lifelong food equity advocates, Gus Schumacher and John Hyde. Together with a grant from the Project for Public Space, we started a farmers market in the Takoma/Langley Crossroads, a neighborhood known as Maryland’s International Corridor, to provide fresh local food for people of all backgrounds and incomes.
An important part of the market from day one was the Fresh Check program, which was created to help make food from local farmers and producers more accessible by matching SNAP and WIC federal nutrition benefits dollar-for-dollar. With this unique “double dollars” benefit in place, the new market slowly became a wholesome part of people’s weekly routines, and this month, the Crossroads Community Food Network, one of our 2024 Give One for Good Food grantees, celebrated its millionth Fresh Check! You can read more about the millionth Fresh Check milestone here.
We recently caught up with the Executive Director of the Crossroads Community Food Network, Lauren Goldberg, to learn more about the inspiration for her work with this long-standing community organization, its broader impact, and her vision for the future of food!
Michele’s Granola (MG): How long have you been working in food justice and how did you get started in this line of work?
Lauren Goldberg (LG): 17 years. In 2007, I was working at a school for kids with learning and developmental delays and I started to understand how important diet is for a child’s ability to focus, listen, and learn in an educational setting. I wanted to get involved and began to learn more. As a result, I started volunteering for a new program at the local Salvation Army teaching knife skills, cooking skills, and kitchen skills to folks living at their shelter, and then placing them in paid internships in restaurants and other food service. This was in Louisville, KY, in 2007, and I believe there was also a greater national awakening to the topics of food access and food apartheid (which at that time was called “food deserts”). For example, that same year, here in MD, Michele’s Granola founder Michele Tsucalas, along with a small group from another farmers market, was inspired to form Crossroads Farmers Market to bring locally grown food to neighborhoods with less access to it. Crossroads Farmers Market was the first in the country to pilot nutrition benefits matching as a way to increase healthy food access. Across the country, many groups were emerging with the same goals: increase healthy food access and affordability.
MG: In your words, what is the mission of Crossroads Community Food Network?
LG: We are building an alternative food system, strengthening small farms and food businesses through local food supply chains, while connecting shoppers with affordable, culturally appropriate foods they love. We know that the larger food system is broken on so many levels; here at Crossroads we are consciously building an alternative.
MG: What do you love most about what you do?
LG: I work with (and have worked with) the most incredible people you’ll ever meet!
MG: What single tool or piece of information is indispensable for your job?
LG: Being flexible, open, and adaptable to whatever comes my way.
MG: What is one lesson your job has taught you that you think everyone should learn at some point in their life?
LG: In Louisville, I ran an urban agriculture program for folks who had come to the US as refugees. In addition to connecting these incredible growers with land access, another of my roles was to develop and provide sales opportunities. I would check in with different growers regarding their interest in participating in selling surplus produce or expanding their growing operations to sell to local restaurants and markets. One of the women I worked with, who is from an ethnic minority in Burma called the Karen, told me, “No thanks, I don’t want to sell at a farmers market or to a restaurant; food is not for selling, it is for sharing.” That really stuck with me.
MG: What is the most inspirational non-profit food or farm project in the U.S., other than your own?
LG: There are WAY too many to mention! In our region, we are blessed with 3 Part Harmony Farm, Black Dirt Farm Collective, The Capital Market, New Brooklyn Farms, ECO-City Farms, Dreaming Out Loud, and many, many, many more.
MG: What is something special about their neighborhood or city others may not know?
LG: Crossroads Farmers Market is open to the public Wednesdays 10:30 am - 2:30 pm from April through November! And if folks are inspired by Michele’s Granola, and want to start their own food business, they can reach out to us to register for our shared-use community kitchen, the Takoma Park Silver Spring Community Kitchen.
MG: What is your favorite vegetable or fruit and how do you like to eat it?
LG: Right now we’re in the season of abundance here in the mid-Atlantic; [late summer] fruits from our orchard partners are in full swing; and all the tastiest vegetables are available. It is such a glorious time of year for eating! These days, I am able to block out all the garbage of the world when I bite into a peach, close my eyes, and focus on that delicious flavor!
MG: What is your dream for the future of food?
LG: A transformed food system in which everyone can grow, eat, make, share, barter, and sell whatever foods they want, in which profits aren’t concentrated at the top for the very few, where all people get the nourishment and sustenance they need and desire.
This [transformed] food system is demand-based, not supply-based. Growing practices are de-industrialized and de-colonized, and we have long ago stopped subsidizing surplus production. We treat the earth like our lives depend on it: we follow indigenous practices and values of how to grow and distribute for ourselves and our communities.
We invite you to learn more about the Crossroads Community Food Network, follow them on social media, and support their work by volunteering or donating!
Photo credit: Crossroads Community Food Network