Anga Sanders can’t stop telling people about what she calls “food apartheid” in her Oak Cliff neighborhood.
Every week for years she would drive more than 12 miles to an Albertsons on Lemmon and McKinney to buy fresh fruit and vegetables, which she couldn’t get in her part of town.
“Dallas is literally a tale of two cities separated by a highway and a river,” Sanders said to a crowd at Dallas College’s West Dallas Center on Thursday. “You can’t have a world-class city like Dallas likes to say it is when over half of the city … is a food desert.”
United Way of Metropolitan Dallas hosted on Thursday a summit on the persistent challenges of, and innovative solutions to, food insecurity in Dallas. Texas is one of the most food-insecure states — and for the first time, the Lone Star State leads the nation in the number of food-insecure residents.
A group of about 30 business and community leaders, entrepreneurs and investors discussed potential opportunities to address food insecurity, particularly in southern Dallas. United Way of Metropolitan Dallas is a social change organization focused on advancing racial equity in education, income and health.
To solve the problem, Sanders founded FEED Oak Cliff and tried and failed to recruit corporate grocers into her neighborhood.
“The condescension is real,” Sanders said. “The things that I have been told, the insults that have been thrown, just broke my heart. Hundreds of thousands of people don’t have access to quality grocery stores. That’s an abomination. And it needs to stop.”
In her corner of southern Dallas, Sanders is working to bring to life a community-based grocery store, a grab-and-go restaurant next door and a rentable commercial kitchen for local cooks to scale their operations.
The concept for the summit first began in November when Hunt Consolidated Energy CEO and president Hunter Hunt invited leaders from United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, Dallas College and the Dallas Citizens Council to come together to analyze food insecurity challenges in southern Dallas and explore sustainable solutions.
Dallas Citizens Council CEO Kelvin Walker said food insecurity in Dallas is a solvable problem, but one that requires real action.
“Dallas has been known sometimes that we will admire our problems to death,” Walker said. “[People] need affordable grocery options and delivery systems that work based on their incomes and based on the demographics of a neighborhood. I think the business community has to lean in on this.”
After the group of leaders convened, United Way of Metropolitan Dallas secured a pro bono eight-week engagement from global firm Boston Consulting Group to conduct research, build a fact base, and make initial recommendations for moving forward.
Boston Consulting Group managing director Megan DeFauw presented data to the group that underscored Sanders’ experience: All of Dallas’ 58 food-insecure census tracts are in southern Dallas. All are majority Hispanic, 54%, or Black, 46%.
The consultants recommended several sustainable solutions that give “shopping-based” access to nutritious foods for families in those census tracts.
Food banks and supplemental markets are just one tool, DeFauw said. But southern Dallas could benefit from more innovative approaches like smaller retailers, delivery services and a centralized facility delivery system.
Crossroad Community Services, led by president and CEO Benaye Wadkins Chambers, is one such distribution hub as part of the North Texas Food Bank, which helps serve southern Dallas.
“Food is not a privilege; it is a right,” Wadkins Chambers said. “And when we do this well, we provide justice to the people who deserve to live equitable lives.”
At Thursday’s summit, Jennifer Sampson, McDermott-Templeton president and CEO of United Way of Metropolitan Dallas, outlined her organization’s plan for innovative solutions.
The organization established its Summer and Supper Council over 10 years ago, which feeds families over the summer who rely on federal nutrition programs during the school year.
But now United Way is taking its food security work to the next level with big goals in mind, she said.
With a focus on advancing racial equity, the nonprofit’s Aspire 2030 goals are to increase by 50% the number of students reading on grade level by third grade; increase by 20% the number of North Texas young adults who earn a living wage; and increase to 96% the number of North Texans with access to affordable health care insurance.
Sampson also detailed a solution investment effort: United Way of Metropolitan Dallas is building a $6 million fund to support expansion of existing local solutions, import successful models from other markets, and seed new solutions to food accessibility and insecurity in southern Dallas.
A $1 million multiyear investment from Bank of America kicked off the fund. Brian Angle, market executive for Bank of America, said the bank has a responsibility as a good corporate citizen to invest in food security so communities can thrive.
“We heard yesterday that the state of Texas actually has the highest level of food insecurity in the entire nation,” Angle said. “That’s unacceptable. We do not want to be No. 1 in that category. We want to be dead last in that category. So it takes something bold to undo something so deeply rooted in our society.”
Did you know that what you just read was a solutions journalism story? It didn’t just examine a problem; it scrutinized a response. By presenting evidence of who is making progress, we remove any excuse that a problem is intractable.
