Recommendations

Empowering Families

Feeding MI Families aimed to embed authentic parent voices into Michigan’s food security dialogue. From Day 1, our team worked within the tenets of Community Based Participatory Research and prioritized the knowledge of individuals with lived experience of food insecurity to develop our methods, materials, and products. Our Parent Leadership Boards became partners with project staff, and together, we worked to confront history and the status quo, and do better. We strived to let go of our egos, reflect on power and privilege, listen more than talk, value all voices, admit our missteps, and respect one another. It wasn’t always easy; many systems aren’t designed to truly support diversity. It is often easier to fall back on the easy ways of working – to assume those with the longest resumes know best, to hire the people who already know the technology, to prioritize those who can meet during “business hours.” But, the easy ways will only end us up where we’ve been for decades so far, marginalizing and excluding those whom we claim we are working to support.

We hope that Feeding MI Families inspires other organizations to fully and sincerely include individuals with lived experience of food insecurity in their leadership and operations. Toward that goal, and inspired by the work of Diane Sullivan, Co-Founder of Equitable Spaces, we are sharing our greatest lessons learned for building respectful, sustainable, and powerful collaborations: Resist the temptation to push your agenda; show up to listen and learn.