Creating a food oasis
UpPrize finalist brings healthy food ventures to urban youth
Stephanie Boddie grew up in a poor section of east Baltimore where eating fresh fruits and vegetables was a luxury reserved for holidays.
The rest of the year, the produce offerings her family could obtain “might be dried up apples or wilted lettuce and collard greens,” she recalled.
“It was easier to get a bag of chips and a Snickers bar.”
Though the urban neighborhood of her youth sits in the shadow of the prestigious Johns Hopkins University, it offered few fresh food grocery options to its low-income residents, said Ms. Boddie.
But the experience of being raised in what she termed “a food swamp” has helped inform her work as a consultant, teacher and activist in Pittsburgh who is trying to promote the critical connections between healthy eating and a better quality of life.
Ms. Boddie, 52, co-leads the Oasis Foods Demonstration Project, a nonprofit initiative based at Homewood’s Bible Center Church. Oasis is developing several food ventures — including a solar-powered greenhouse and fishery on Fleury Way in Homewood — where young people are engaged in growing, preparing and selling nutritious food.
In a bid to raise more money for the project, Ms. Boddie on Thursday will deliver a four-minute pitch about Oasis during the final round of UpPrize — a competition that funds companies and nonprofits with a strong social mission.
Oasis is one of five finalists competing for $300,000 in UpPrize’s healthy food access challenge sponsored by Bridgeway Capital.
Another five finalists will pitch for funding awards totaling $300,000 in the impactful technology division sponsored by BNY Mellon of Southwestern Pennsylvania. Those finalists have created products or services to improve the lives of people in need, such as an online portal for accessing children’s medical records and an energy-saving thermostat.
As finalists, all 10 organizations have already won $10,000 from UpPrize. A total of 175 entered this year’s competition, which was organized by The Forbes Funds, an affiliate of the Pittsburgh Foundation that assists the region’s nonprofit sector.
Competitors will deliver their final pitches in front of an audience at the Heinz History Center in the Strip District.
Though Ms. Boddie left her neighborhood to pursue a bachelor’s degree at Johns Hopkins and graduate work at the University of Pennsylvania, years of poor eating habits eventually caught up with her.
About six years ago, she was diagnosed with severe malnutrition after suffering migraine headaches, sleep disorders and chronic pain.
Even though she had adopted a somewhat improved diet as an adult, “I couldn’t absorb healthy foods because of high levels of toxicity in my system,” she said. “I had years of not eating well to overcome.”
After retreating to Florida for a two-week detox during which she consumed only green juices made from fruits and vegetables, she said, “I became a firm believer that the food we give our children has an impact.”
When she moved to Pittsburgh in 2012 to work as a researcher at the University of Pittsburgh, she began developing plans for the Oasis initiative with the Rev. John Wallace, pastor of the Bible Center Church.
Through Oasis, young children and teens experience “a deep dive into food so they can challenge their own food choices,” said Ms. Boddie.
Classes and projects involve growing food using sustainable methods, learning culinary skills and selling food as a business.
At its Farm & Fishery site in Homewood, Oasis uses a bioshelter, or solarpowered greenhouse, for sustainable growing. One goal is that the vegetables, berries, herbs and other items produced there could be incorporated into menu items at the Everyday Cafe, another social enterprise that Bible Church owns and operates on North Homewood Avenue.
At the quarter-acre site that houses the bioshelter, Oasis hopes to add an amphitheater, outdoor classroom, African-American heritage garden and other gardens.
During her pitch at UpPrize, Ms. Boddie will emphasize that Oasis eventually will provide opportunities for youth and adults in Homewood by creating jobs, internships and more awareness about healthy food.
“Just having a supermarket in a food desert won’t change everything,” she said.