Residents of the South End neighborhood of Albany cope daily with a lack of food access. The terms “food desert” and “food apartheid” describe a struggle that is deeply rooted in structural oppression.
Three Siena students - Matthew McAuliffe ’20, Ivory Moore ’20 and Aedan Raleigh ’20 - and their faculty advisor Ruth Kassel, Ph.D., have been studying the situation and the public health-related issues that stem from being food insecure. Their project was one of only 60 in the country selected for Posters on the Hill 2020, an undergraduate poster session held each spring on Capitol Hill.
Sponsored by the Council on Undergraduate Research (CUR), this event and its related activities welcome members of Congress and their staff to learn about the importance of undergraduate research by talking directly with students. This year’s event was held online and via Twitter with the hashtag #POH2020.
Prevented from making a trip to Washington because of the COVID-19 shutdown, the Siena team put together a four-panel virtual presentation of “Wealth Building and Community Ownership in the South End.”
In collaboration with the local nonprofit AVillage, their study engaged the community in creative needs assessment, reviewed business models that addressed the specific health and economic needs of the community, and worked to develop a business model for what is being called the South End Night Market.
The goal: to create a structure for an accessible market with cooperative principles that can be used for future economic development even beyond food justice. Previous studies showed that this model was identified by its potential to be most effective in anchoring wealth in the Albany neighborhood.
“Working with the South End community has been an incredibly fulfilling experience,” said McAuliffe, the NExT project coordinator. “The research my peers and I conducted has formed the foundation of a sustainable business incubator. I will keep the skills I learned from this experience and stay engaged in the South End after I graduate from Siena.”
Kassel said the students’ work “brings together diverse disciplines with a dynamic community partner to engage in a unique and growing area of research on community wealth building.”
The students gathered data from pop-up focus groups and ethnographic observations in South End community meetings. They analyzed and coded their notes to develop theories based on food sovereignty, ownership and community well-being.
Their research will be used to develop the South End Night Market business incubator where local vendors will offer “culturally relevant goods and services in the areas of food/produce, wellness, beauty and apparel.” The incubators will give vendors entrepreneurial experience, with a long-term goal of a stronger business community that will anchor wealth in the South End.
Moore said the mantra "Hold the vision, trust the process" helped guide her through the research process.
“Throughout working on a complex and dynamic project, it's easy to lose focus on the main goal. Projects may not go as planned, things fall out of place, we are humans and we make mistakes. As long as we hold our vision and trust the process, the South End Night Market will continue to flourish and get the recognition and success it deserves.”
Raleigh, who like Moore is a Bonner Service Leader, said working on the project has been an amazing experience.
“The development of the Night Market has involved multiple semesters of research and engagement with the South End community, and is the culmination of my four years of service at the ACE office. I definitely have an attachment to it now. Despite needing to shift to an online platform to present our research, it brought national attention to often ignored communities. The systemic issues that plague the South End community are paralleled across the country, so our research can be applied to many other communities.”