The ambitious work of the HEAL (Health Environment Agriculture and Labor) Food Alliance is taking flight. HEAL’s mission is to build our collective power to create food and farm systems that are healthy for our families, accessible and affordable for all communities, and fair to the hard-working people who grow, distribute, prepare, and serve our food — while protecting the air, water, and land we all depend on. The broad-based, multi-sector, and multi-racial coalition was launched by Food Chain Workers Alliance together with Real Food Challenge, Union of Concerned Scientists, and the National Black Food & Justice Alliance. We held our second annual summit in Cleveland, Ohio this past March 9-12.
The summit was historic in many ways. We gathered over 150 people from all over the US to commit together to work towards a food system that prioritizes people and planet over profits. We committed to continue to build a new generation of political leaders that can run for office and win using the Real Food Platform as a fundamental pledge to their communities and to the US. We also committed to continue to build HEAL as a base run by people of color and with the agenda of prioritizing frontline communities first and foremost. We committed to work together with local partners to win Good Food Purchasing Policies in many new cities. HEAL is now poised to take a major leap into a mass movement toward a just and fair food system!