Center for Great Neighborhoods to launch food-based creative placemaking initiative in Covington

The Center for Great Neighborhoods is known for its creative placemaking initiatives in Covington, and in the next few months it will begin a food-oriented creative placemaking initiative.
 
The Center received a $75,000 Kresge Foundation grant — Fresh, Local & Equitable: Food as a Creative Platform for Neighborhood Revitalization, or FreshLo — to support project management, partnership development, community engagement, strategic communications and policy development related to the project. It was one of 26 organizations chosen to receive the grant out of 500 applications.
 
As part of the FreshLo community, the Center will create and enhance paths to opportunity for people in low-income urban neighborhoods. The project will focus on Covington’s Westside and include a four-step planning process to increase resident engagement.
 
The first step in the process is a series of food mapping events that will identify the priorities of Westside residents and business owners. As a community development tool, food mapping is a way to creatively map out food sources as well as start conversations about personal healthy, community, economic and ecological impacts of food systems.
 
After that, the Center will launch pilot projects that will incorporate artists into the food system to help tackle the priorities identified by the community. Projects could include cooking classes, place-based marketing or training youth in gardening and agriculture.