Documenting North Minneapolis Culture through Food Storytelling

Community Cooks | is our flagship program, it was started by our three co-founders, Tasha Powell, Princess Haley and Michelle Horovitz, as a method to engage North Minneapolis community members together in dialogue through cooking, eating and supporting each other. Until March of 2020, we had been running roughly 54 workshops every year. These workshops bring together diverse groups of individuals and provide a backdrop of food skills development, for a chance to build connections and social networks within the community. Participants who join us for Community Cooks tend to be primarily from the North Minneapolis community, however we have a range of individuals who have attended over the years. Appetite For Change has never had the opportunity to document the experience of a Community Cooks workshop, and furthermore, the current social climate is hungry fo learning about rich cultural histories of BIPOC Minnesotans. North Minneapolis, a community comprised of primarily BIPOC residents (~75%) holds countless stories about the community's history, and current culture and traditions. With this funding from the Clean Water Land & Legacy Fund, we will embark on a series of recorded conversations centered around food traditions and storytelling, while being facilitated to draw out personal histories and the legacy of the many diverse cultures that make up North Minneapolis. We will host 5 sessions in 2022 and 5 sessions in 2023. The sessions in 2022 will exclusively feature multiple generational perspectives from North Minneapolis' Black community. Families, and/or individuals already in close contact (up to 3 families, no more than 3 individuals per family with a maximum of 10 individuals per workshop including our Community Cooks Program Manager) will be invited to participate. One main contact for the participating families will be asked to prepare a dish that represent their culture and family history. Families will share their recipe with our facilitator, Nicole Powell - Community Cooks Program manager, and they will bring their prepared dishes to the recording studio, families will also receive a special kitchen kit, valued at ~$200 including a chef's knife, a high quality cutting board, a quality saute pan, and 1 AFC branded apron. Nicole will review the recipes ahead of the workshop and choose a side dish from our archive of Appetite For Change, Community Cooks recipes, to prepare onsite with families before all sitting to eat the food and participate in a recorded, and facilitated discussion drawing out cultural and community history through sharing of food stories, and memories. The sessions in 2023 will invite multiple diverse BIPOC residents across North Minneapolis to participate. Families will generally be recruited through Appetite For Change's strong community network and word of mouth, and by posting the opportunity on social media. Families can receive up to $1500 for participating, if a multigenerational family of up to 10 individuals attends the workshop, and individual families of up to 3 can receive $500 for participating. Appetite For Change strongly values compensation for our community sharing their wisdom and stories, and we will be sure the clearly represent the intentions of the series to be shared publicly and that the intentions of the project are to inform and educate the public about the rich, cultural history of North Minneapolis. The recorded sessions will then be edited onsite at Appetite For Change by our Marketing and Communications team, pulling out promotional clips and with the goal of archiving each session and discussion to be released as a viewing series on AFCs YouTube Channel. Following the final workshop, AFCs Marketing and Communications team will upload all videos to AFCs YouTube channel and release 1/week for 10 weeks, with special promotions leading up to each week's release including promotional clips and interviews with participants about the experience. The goal will be to spread this series as a cultural interest piece across the Twin Cities, and if possible, across the state of Minnesota.