Economic Development through Inner City Farming
more food, more graduates, and more purpose for empty city lots
Rev. Dr. Stacey Brohard, Executive Director of The Good Samaritan Inn, is presenting at the Regional Neighborhood Network Conference (RNNC) 2017 in Evansville, Indiana on October 6, 2017.
The Regional Neighborhood Network Conference is a three-day event bringing together community-minded individuals and organizations from Indiana, Ohio, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee. Volunteers, corporations, government representatives, and community leaders gather to learn from each other and gain valuable ideas to help transform their own community. It features a wide variety of workshops about state of the art approaches to neighborhood improvement, presentations by experts and leaders in urban and neighborhood development.
This year's conference theme is Neighborhoods: Where Life Happens.
Rev. Dr. Stacey Brohard, Executive Director of The Good Samaritan Inn, will be presenting alongside many Midwest leaders in neighborhood development. He will be presenting how, in Decatur, Illinois, The Good Samaritan Inn serves as much more than a soup kitchen and not-for-profit. Non-profits can be strong leaders in neighborhood economic development. He will present The Good Samaritan Inn as a model for potential duplication of inner-city farming as economic development in their communities.
The Good Samaritan Inn is located in one of the lowest-income neighborhoods in the Decatur area. Under the leadership of Reverend Stacey Brohard, the local soup kitchen identified a problem - lack of access to food - and then realized that they were uniquely positioned to explore an opportunity to improve the neighborhood.
A few years ago, the Good Samaritan Inn had a dilemma they needed to troubleshoot:
We feed 300 + people a hot noon meal 7 days a week
We have an abundance of volunteers
We are in constant need of food
The neighborhood we are in has a problem maintaining empty lots
A large percentage of our patrons are unemployed
The Good Samaritan Inn's solution - rally volunteers and community partners to transition the empty lots into urban farming. And, through that, create a job training program for unemployed individuals in the neighborhood.
Currently The Good Samaritan Inn produces 14,000 pounds of fresh food per year for the soup kitchen while training adults for today’s job markets.The Good Samaritan Inn grows more food, more graduates, and more city lots with purpose. It has grown hope for a city, a neighbor, and its people.