Everyday, I find myself having conversations with friends, with clients, and with people who are trying to make sense of this mess that we find ourselves in. What this global pandemic is teaching people, I think, is that the things that are truly important are more clear now than they ever have been. Access to healthcare, healthy & delicious food, sharing time with loved ones, and spending time well are all themes that seem universally understood these days.
It comes as little surprise then to read reports of consumer spending shifting quite quickly and dramatically toward investments in self-sufficiency, in resilience, and in our local economy. In a pre-COVID world it seemed, to me at least, that we were aware of the problems that surrounded us but oftentimes convenience and a race to the bottom would win out in spite of our best intentions. It is my hope that emerging from this crisis, we can forge another path, one that is not just the new normal but is a world we can be truly jazzed and excited about. We have the opportunity to build the world we want to see, not just the one we are dealt. While we are undoubtedly in scary and uncertain times, I would argue that we need to invite in our passions and vision for the world we want in the driver seat right now and have that guide our outlook rather than the fear and polarization that might seem easier.
I am seeing signs that make me truly optimistic: “The Local Food Revolution Goes Online—for Now”, there are reported surges in Community Supported Agriculture shares, and a client/ partner of ours, Perfectly Imperfect, has seen their orders quadruple since COVID hit. Locally, others are making waves too. The Central Kitchen has launched an e-Commerce store that allows you to buy curated boxes of locally grown or produced food products from a dozen (and growing) purveyors.
Central Kitchen, along with a number of our partners including Spice Kitchen and Bar, Fire Food and Drink, Market Garden Brewery, the Flying Fig, and Zhug even launched a mini-documentary series to give the public a glimpse into just how dramatic COVID has been on small businesses. It can be viewed as bleak but the resounding sentiment I hear is one of resilience, hope, and potential.
As many people across the country and here in Cleveland continue to try and make sense of how to proceed, I wanted to propose that perhaps the best way to move forward is with commitment, with purpose, and intentionality. There is an unbelievably cool project that has taken root called the Cleveland Stimulus Pledge, it invites those able to:
Take the pledge to give some or all of your stimulus check to groups in Northeast Ohio that need your support. This month, many of us will receive a stimulus check from the federal government for $1,200. If you are still employed and do not need all of your check, or even if you earn too much to receive a check and wish to donate some of your income, consider donating to local groups that need support.
I invite you to take the pledge but I also invite you to consider not just to donate but to invest. Invest in the kind of future you want to see in this world. If you, like me, see the connection between the climate crisis and food insecurity, invest. Perhaps you, like me, realize that restaurants are too small to fail but so too are the small farmers whose income relies on those same small businesses currently struggling, invest. If you think that now is the time we put our dollars toward investing in the infrastructure that can make us more prepared and resilient in the face of uncertainty, invest.
We, for one, are accepting ‘early-enrollment’ in our residential services. We are not currently offering services but are inviting you and your neighbors to ‘pledge’ to use our services when the worst is behind us. Folks at the Central Kitchen are leveraging your dollars to save small farmers and producers, invest in a small farm that is offering a CSA, buy starter plants from and for your community garden, plant seeds yourself and grow a victory garden and then buy your soil locally. Our dollars go further when they stay local and we are all about to get dollars from Uncle Sam. Many of us need these funds to essentials like healthcare, childcare, rent, utilities, and food but for those of us more fortunate than others, invest. Your dollar will never go further, yield better returns, and mean more than it will now.
We are too small to fail but our impact is also too large to be overlooked.
