Putting fresh, local, sustainably grown vegetables on the table of everyone in our community is the aim of an organization called City Fresh.

City Fresh is a Cuyahoga County nonprofit program of the New Agrarian Center that supports the creation of a sustainable local food system in Northeast Ohio. Founded by Brad Masi, the program was meant to address the needs of those who are most at-risk within our community.

The New Agrarian Center is committed to building a stronger and more sustainable regional food system in Northeast Ohio: a food system that promotes health in the broadest sense of the word -- healthy land, healthy communities, healthy individuals and a healthy economy.

Earlier this month, a diverse group of loosely affiliated organizations came together to facilitate the Growing Hope Food Summit. Community members were invited to the summit to assist in creating a shared awareness of our local food system and its gaps, to help launch a movement to increase access to healthy food, explore ways to strengthen the local food economy and connect and empower Summit County residents to act collectively.

After the release of the Community Health Assessment in March, completed for the five- county local area on behalf of three area hospitals, an interest in fresh healthy food was found to be high among all categories of participants. Thus was created the Growing Hope Food Summit, produced by Round River Consulting and staged with efforts of the Summit Food Policy Coalition, Akron Summit Community Action, Inc. and many others.  Hosted at St. Joseph’s Family Center April 1 and 2, free daycare was available, and the Mustard Seed Market provided lunch.

“I just want people to think about food a little differently.”

That’s the dream of local cheese guru Abbe Turner, who last year turned her passion for raising goats into a full-blown community project for farm-fresh food. The self-proclaimed “entrepreneur and optimist” spent five months renovating a former labor temple in Kent into a goat cheese creamery that produces unbelievably fresh, delicious cheese.