By Laurie Casey
One Earth Collective helped Austin Eats host a screening of “They’re Trying To Kill Us,” at Bethel New Life Mildred Wiley Wellness Center in the West Side neighborhood of Austin. Austin Eats is a 26-member coalition of organizations working to create a healthy food system on the West Side of Chicago.
Our event mission was to engage Austin residents in their quest to eat healthy and fight a lot of the diseases that plague Black and brown communities. We shared recipes, tools, and ideas to protect our health. The system is designed to make us sick, yet it’s hard to see what they are doing. Austin residents deserve to understand the threats to our health and the powerful tools that can help us live healthy, joyful lives.
Here are some highlights….
Aniki Coates (left), the garden and wellness manager at Bethel New Life, was available to take attendees through their raised bed farm, featuring many kinds of produce at the height of the harvest.
Austin Coming Together, Austin Community Food Coop, Greater Chicago Food Depository, and two Austin-based yoga/meditation practitioners. In addition, Thresholds Health was on hand to offer blood pressure and diabetes checks right there, Lurie Children’s Hospital All Hands Health Network program engaged attendees with their health, and a voting registration drive table was available to help people register to vote.
The Second Annual Best of the West Mac & Cheese Contest was another popular event, drawing many families with young children, as well as youth attendees. This year, all contestants added at least one vegetable to their dishes. Three of the contestants were vegan chefs. This year’s winning chef was Edward Jackson from Chef Daddy’s Restaurant.
We screened the film “They’re Trying To Kill Us,” a feature documentary about rural and urban Black farmers who are returning to agriculture. The film’s executive producers are seven-time NBA All-Star, Chris Paul and 7X Grammy winner, Billie Eilish. Notable influencers from the fields of Hip Hop, medicine, sports, entertainment, policy, and politics weigh in on big Pharma and government policies that hurt health in BIPOC communities. Watch the trailer: https://www.theyretryingtokillus.com/
After the film, we had a rich dialogue facilitated by Cassandra Norman of the Austin Garden Collective and the Austin Community Food Co-Op. The panelists were Dr. Danny Lugar, a physician with Rush who works at Austin pop-up events for unhoused people; Neveah, a youth who works at the newly launched Austin Harvest Grocery Store; and Mona Strahan, a nutritionist and cancer researcher with UIC Cancer Center. Watch a recording of the panel discussion here: https://youtu.be/OAZerdy0UDU
We also debuted a new contest for youth–the Austin Eats Verses & Vittles Lyrical Slam. Youth ages 14-25 could watch the film, and then respond to the themes in the film with a poem, rap, lyric, song or other artistic expression. We will be sharing these submissions on social media accounts of One Earth Collective and Austin Coming Together, in order to raise awareness of healthy eating among youth and their networks. There are cash prizes. The submission deadline is November 7. Learn more here: bit.ly/ae-verses
All attendees were encouraged to take action in their communities for healthy food options, such as buying local produce, attending the Austin Town Hall Farmers’ Market, growing their own food, considering more plant-based diets, and demanding from elected officials more healthy food options in their community. We gave away at least 100 recipe cards from the dishes cooked by our featured chefs: Qia Carswell of Chicago Style Vegan and Chef Patty Ringo of Katr2U. And as attendees left, we gave away 50 copies of the African American Vegan Starter Guide magazine. All in all, it was a lovely evening filled with community, flavors, and lots of new ideas.