Shared Kitchen Entrepreneurial Development Coordinator

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StarkFresh is pleased to announce we have an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer position available through the Ohio CDC Association.

Organization Information:

StarkFresh is a small, but mighty 501(c )3 nonprofit located in Canton, Ohio and servicing Stark County, Ohio.

Our mission is tackling the causes of hunger by creating realistic pathways out of poverty.

We envision a Stark County where a culture of good nutrition creates a better quality of life as well as a community that is rejuvenated and empowered, free from the restraints of systematic poverty. We are connecting growers, consumers, & producers to help create a better food system that focuses on making locally-sourced, nutrient-dense, and affordable foods available to everyone in Stark County.

We support learning and teaching opportunities that promote the growth, use, and sale of local foods and assist in the growth of urban agricultural and food employment opportunities. Being a small organization with several large-scale programs and limited paid staff, we are quite adept at utilizing our existing partnerships and our volunteer network to ensure that our programs continue to run smoothly.

StarkFresh runs Northeast Ohio’s only Mobile Grocery Market, which provides healthy food access to areas throughout the county that are in food apartheid areas and to those with low mobility challenges. These "Veggie Mobiles" take produce and other healthy groceries into the community where they are sold at a reasonable cost.

Some of our other programs include our free Seed Library distribution network, our three urban farms which include our Urban Teaching Farm, Training Farm, Cooperative Farm, Food Entrepreneurship Training program, Shared Kitchen Space, Mushroom Farm, Educational Programming, Food Safety Programming, and Small Grocery Store. We are also assisting with an Urban Agricultural Internship program with several organizations, a meal delivery service pilot with several other groups and also are spearheading a coalition project to bring a community-owned non-profit supermarket to a food desert.

To find out more about what StarkFresh does, visit us at www.starkfresh.org or our Facebook page at www.facebook.com/starkfresh

Position Summary:

The VISTA Member will help build capacity of pilot programming which will serve to expand the overall access to healthy food for low-income residents. The VISTA member will expand on-going efforts to develop a functional shared kitchen space & a food entrepreneurial business program through planning assistance, development & outreach tasks. The VISTA member will help with StarkFresh’s operational capacity to effectively develop & maintain these programs after they are up & running. These pilot programs will allow for additional economic opportunities for low-income residents by utilizing existing Kitchen Campus space & be able to access some of our other programming for guidance, assistance & partnership, including our Mobile Grocery Market. The VISTA member will improve accessibility of healthy foods for low-income residents by assisting with an output of fresh, locally-made food throughout the community from the shared kitchen & creating greater opportunities to reach create a viable pathway out of poverty through the entrepreneurial program.

Job Functions:

• Coordinate development plan for Shared Kitchen space to increase healthy food output
• Research other shared kitchen space models and go over work that has been done locally to do comparable work.
• Research community needs and identify gaps where a shared kitchen space can be used to help bring healthy foods to more people.
• Using previous year data, and through interviews with community members, research the partners that could be brought into the kitchen space to tie into existing programming, that would increase community distribution of fresh foods.
• Develop a plan to open up an existing commercial kitchen space to community members and be able to process fresh foods for easier meal preparation.
• Coordinate data into a final plan on how to use kitchen space to develop individual food entrepreneurs and create products to be made in the space for retail or wholesale sales, allowing for more fresh foods to be accessible overall throughout the community. Analyze resident healthy retail food needs

• Create a food entrepreneurial program using the shared kitchen space
• Identify and recommend the best use of community resources to create a streamlined program
• Develop best practices manual that will be used between StarkFresh, the shared kitchen space and the entrepreneurial program
• Create marketing pieces to attract potential interested enrollees and partners

• Create systems for symbiotic relationship between shared kitchen space, food entrepreneurs, Grocery store and Supermarket to allow fresh food to flow freely through all programming
• Create accountability methods involving participants from each project level
• Identify roadblocks to seamless integration between all aspects of programming
• Using identified roadblocks, build the capacity of StarkFresh to overcome them with collaborative solutions to ensure fresh food access across all aspects of programming.

The VISTA candidates should possess some college-level education. However, all are welcome to apply because skill sets will supersede education levels.

Skills and/or Experience Qualifications

• Effectively communicates with individuals of diverse backgrounds & enjoy meeting new people
• Effective writing and editing skills & proficient in Microsoft Word and Excel
• Creative ideas, high energy & community organization
• Fundraising/grant writing
• Driver’s license and access to reliable transportation
• Must enjoy working outdoors in all types of weather, getting your hands dirty, & having fun
• Minimum age requirement 18 years old

Americorp VISTA benefits

• Monthly cost of living allowance ($1,026 per month)
• End of service stipend/education award (Education stipend $6,095 or Cash $1,800)
• Health care support (varies)
• Child care support (varies)
• Housing support (varies)

This Americorp VISTA volunteer job starts in June 2019 and ends June 2020.

Interested candidates must apply for the position online at https://goo.gl/forms/zUgFoyiLVDpJ6L7Z2

Once an application has been submitted via the portal, ALSO submit a resume via email to tomp@starkfresh.org

Applications MUST be submitted through the portal NO LATER than April 1 st, 2019.