Neighborhood Grocery Store 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 assist with the expansion of efforts of two separate programs to bring a community-owned nonprofit supermarket and a smaller, neighborhood grocery store into two food apartheids in lower-income areas in Canton, OH. The VISTA member will help to build up StarkFresh’s capacity and assist with examining how the development & implementation of these stores, and the accompanying programs needed to sustain them, will serve to create not only healthy food access but also economic revitalization and stability to the area. The VISTA will help further the project’s capacity by helping research the expansion of job-training, financial literacy & healthy eating programs as integral programming components. The VISTA member will conduct research, assist with grant writing and develop outreach strategies for these programs.

Job Functions:

• Analyze resident healthy retail food needs
• Research what roadblocks exist preventing fresh food access through interviews and meeting with community members.
• Determine what the community food needs are.
• Research feasibility and identify solutions to reduce the roadblocks to fresh food access.
• Develop a plan to bypass existing roadblocks to fresh foods using previous research and community input.

• Coordinate "blueprint" plan report for Canton Supermarket and Grocery store that will be used to get the project underway.
• Analyze and collate the work that has been previously done surrounding these projects.
• Develop a plan to obtain the information that still needs to be collected in order to fill in gaps in information that are required to create a full picture of what needs to be done.
• Take the analyzed data and organize it into an easy to understand format in the form of a presentation and easy to navigate files.

• 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/qqym5EO4pi9t3gjZ2

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.