Because everyone deserves access to healthy, safe, and affordable food.
Eric Weiss—Healthy Improvement Project Manager with the Center for Prevention at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota—unexpectedly found his way into food access work while helping run the New Hope Farmers Market through his previous job as a city planner. As residents’ interest in food production increased, so, too, did his awareness of the connection between community development and food access. “As a planner, I noticed changes where residents were requesting more permissive city ordinances on keeping backyard chickens, while others had questions about composting or how to start farmers markets and community gardens,” Eric explained. At the same …