Greening The Food Desert, One Corner Store at A Time

Join us as www.marketmakeovers.org launches at the California Endowment, 1000 N. Alameda St. Los Angeles, Tuesday Nov. 17 at 6 pm. Also includes a screening of the documentary Food, Inc. For details and to rsvp: http://tcenews.calendow.org/pr/tce/Food-Inc.aspx. The event is likely to fill up fast, so rsvp right away!

Marketmakeovers.org: Healthy Food Access Never Tasted This Good!

• Three years in the making!
• Featuring over 100 videos!
• The latest developments, useful information, expert tips and youth-driven media content about improving healthy food access in food deserts.

MarketMakeovers.org is a dynamic online resource about the process of making over small corner stores to carry healthier food choices. It features the work of South L.A. Healthy Eating Active Community Initiative (HEAC), local high school students, and Public Matters, using the conversions of corner stores in South L.A. as case studies.

MarketMakeovers.org combines pragmatic information and creative, innovative strategies in multiple presentation formats:

• Downloadable, user-friendly how-to’s of market makeovers
• Innovative youth-generated videos about South L.A.’s food desert

MarketMakeovers.org is an evolving guide:

• A repository of information, best practices and lessons learned
• A forum for exchange
• A springboard for advancing work in this burgeoning field.

Why Market Makeovers?

Market makeovers address healthy food access in low-income, resource-poor communities suffering from epidemic rates of obesity and diabetes by transforming existing corner markets in areas where junk food abounds and supermarkets and groceries are scarce.

So Much Content We Needed 3 Channels!

MMTV (Market Makeover TV):

In MMTV 411 with Nathan Cheng, our resident market makeover expert steps through the market makeover process, accompanied by a treasure trove of downloadable wisdom from South LA and market makeovers across the country.

N3 (Neighborhood Network News): All the truth that’s fit to digest about the food desert, featuring the time-travelling series There’s No Time Like the Present and the hard-hitting NNN Media Fix.

YUMTV (A Different Kind of Food for Thought): Nutrition knowledge and kitchen know-how served with attitude, featuring the reality show competition So You Think You Can Cook? and the always informative Do You Mind Reading What Your Eating?

GUESTS GALORE: Learn from the experts and change makers. Including NPR’s The Kitchen Sisters, corner store conversion guru Hannah Burton Laurison, UCLA Public Health Professor Dr. Alex Ortega, PolicyLink Assoicate Director Mary Lee, and West Oakland Youth Standing Empowered. More to come!

FreshBite: Now it’s your turn. Marketmakeovers.org is designed to facilitate dialogue and exchange about healthy food access issues. Create an account, share your thoughts, insights, photos and videos! C’mon, do it!

News: Links to hot topics and articles on healthy food access.

Thanks to our fabulous site designers SMBLZ and to The California Endowment for funding the project, to the amazing South L.A. HEAC Youth Ambassadors and HEAC Team, project interns Arianna Taboada and Eddie North-Hager, Nathan Cheng and everyone else who has helped make this project happen.