What was the initiative?
Becca’s initiative aimed to address food security in Halifax, Nova Scotia, through the re-use and prevention of food waste. By fostering constructive dialogue, her initiative was designed to strengthen the relationships between food businesses and those who have low access to healthy food choices, to reduce and redirect food waste, increase food security and help sustain our environment.
Through a series of participatory workshops, community members and local food businesses came together to cook with food waste and learned to reduce, reuse and prevent food waste at the house hold level.
What was the community connection?
Becca was involved in the broader food movement of Nova Scotia throughout her undergrad degree which exposed her to the things going on in Halifax. After living in the city during the summer months and being involved with numerous food initiatives, Becca brought together some key players in the Halifax food movement to discuss what community members wanted to see happen as the food movement progressed.
How was it innovative?
The food movement in Halifax was relatively active, but a focus on food waste was just emerging. Through shared stories and conversation with community members, Becca quickly learned the passion and need for more sustainable food initiatives in her community. Food waste became a multi-faceted approach to food security in an urban setting.
What is Becca doing now?
Since finishing the OceanPath Fellowship, Becca’s career has been focused on supporting community-based organizations and public sector organizations to increase their youth engagement efforts. She is an advocate for cross-sector collaboration and asset-based community development. With skills in strategic planning and program evaluation, Becca also does consulting work with non-profit organizations in Halifax.
Becca was recently promoted to Project Lead for integrated youth services within the Multi Service Youth Center (MSYC) at the Halifax Regional Municipality. In this role, she is responsible for for the implementation of the MSYC Pilot Project. MSYC offesr an integrated youth service delivery approach, working with community partners to expand access to community-based mental health and social services for youth.