2025 ANNUAL REPORT

Report Contents

Structural Developments

As a community-led project, we prioritize collective learning, reflection, and adaptation in alignment with our values. In 2025, we deepened partnerships with CORE (Collective on Racial Equity) and the Western NC Food System Coalition by bringing them onto our project team. We also transitioned from our long-time fiscal home with the Center for Environmental Farming Systems (CEFS) at NC State University to full fiscal sponsorship with Upstream Works Collaborative, allowing greater capacity to center racial equity. While honoring CEFS as our original home, we remain committed to partnerships that prioritize the Network’s needs and advance equity and justice.

Solidarity economy has become a central framework for our work, illuminating value-driven practices that shift power to grassroots efforts and support equitable, participatory systems change.

As we deepen our understanding of just food systems, we are increasingly centering fair and dignified work. This has led to the formation of an internal team focused on building relationships with and amplifying food labor justice efforts.

Alongside our communities of practice (Healthy Food Advocacy and Roots of Resilience), these efforts reflect our commitment to long-term relationships that foster solidarity, care, and accountability.

IMPACT

Attendees across all events

Mid-year coalition check-ins

Attendees + 60 coalition groups represented at the Statewide Gathering

Interns across 7 sites participated in the FIRE internship

Reaching Our Audience

Instagram Reach up

Quarterly Newsletters open rate

Facebook reach up

What Did We Do

Community Food Strategies is about connecting changemakers across North Carolina to shift our food system towards equity and justice. We are so proud of the ways our 2025 Statewide Community Food Gathering, Roots of Resilience Cohort, Shared Gifting participatory grantmaking, Healthy Food Advocacy Cohort, the FIRE Internship, and Coalition Coaching supported those goals in 2025.

Build Networks

2025 Statewide Community Food Gathering

The Community Food Gathering is an intentionally curated 2 days of learning and practice that fuels trust, accelerates collaboration, and mobilizes collective action across our network. In 2025 our theme was Transformational Community. Over 200 food system change makers, across 60 different organizations came together from across North Carolina, and beyond, to build a way forward together. We elevated community wisdom, hosted mutual aid spaces and dance parties, and cultivated long-lasting connections as tools for change.

Provide Training

Roots of Resilience Cohort

Roots of Resilience is an 18-month transformative community of practice for NC food system leaders. The content reflects the breadth of Community Food Strategies’ project work, including principles of racial justice, solidarity, equity, collective care, and advocacy. We piloted this cohort in 2025 with eleven food coalitions that engaged in collaborative learning, coaching, workshops, and participatory grantmaking. The cohort members earned a stipend to participate, and dedicated time every-other-month over the 18 months, to deepen skills and awareness for building just food ecosystems. Some of the tools: the 4Rs for social transformation; solidarity economy principles; food policy and advocacy approaches; abundance-based resourcing; relational accountability methods; and more.

Share Resources

Shared Gifting

Shared Gifting is a participatory grant-making process where grantees are also the grantors. This process offers deeper understanding of each other’s work, shifts leadership and power towards the people closest to the work and community, and is an opportunity to practice equity-based decision making. Throughout this process, we spotlight how equitable decision making shows up in the process and invite people to reflect on how we all come with different advantages and disadvantages with varying access, resources, and opportunities.This year, we got to deepen those purposes by embedding the process within the Roots of Resilience cohort where ten coalitions distributed $110,000 amongst their peers to support projects ranging from youth programming to food sovereignty.

Offer Support

BCBS Healthy Food Advocacy Cohort

The Healthy Food Advocacy Cohort is a three year cohort to build and deepen confidence and skills in cohort members’ roles as leaders in food advocacy. The cohort model is intended to build connections with their peers to foster continued support and co-learning during and after their shared cohort experience. In this first year, cohort members gathered in-person twice for setting the foundations and supporting their skill and leadership development.

Tell Stories

Food Inspired Resilience and Equity (FIRE) Internship

The FIRE – Food Inspired Resilience and Equity – Internship is a meaningful pairing of food coalitions with students to work together on local food, community, and equity efforts. The program expands the capacity of food coalitions by matching their needs to the interest of a paid college student. We are able to support both food coalitions and students with orientations, communication, professional development, and networking. In the 2024 – 2025 cohort, six food coalitions and students were able to strengthen their work in local farmer support, food access, community engagement, and food policy.

Make Connections

Direct Facilitation with Food Coalitions

This year we provided direct facilitation support – in person and virtual – to the Southeastern Regional Food Council, Wilkes County Food Council, Gaston County Food Council, and Watauga County Food Council. These groups are developing new food councils, re-organizing existing or former versions of their local councils, or seeking strategic visioning for their group.

2025 Timeline

Quarter 1
- Roots of Resilience Community of Practice Kick-Off (ROR CoP) – an 18-month journey focused on progressive food systems, racial equity and community impact.
- Quarter 1 Network Call – introduced the framework called the 4 R’s of Social Transformation – Resist, Reform, Reimagine, and Recreate (a framework created by Jodi Lasster of NCCJC)
- Western Regional Gathering (March 2025) was postponed due to the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. The gathering focused on collectively holding the ongoing loss and grief from the destruction of Hurricane Helene, and a space to continue to organize around how best to support food organizations in the region.
- Blue Cross Blue Shield Healthy Food Advocacy Cohort in-person Kick-Off – Community Food Strategies supports cohort members to build & deepen confidence and skills in their roles as food advocacy leaders in their communities.
- Regional Councils of Government Advancing Food Systems Working Group Calls

Quarter 2
- Roots of Resilience Cohort – Community Food Strategies facilitated two Shared Gifting Circles
- FIRE Internship End of Year celebration
- Quarter 2 Network Call – discussed two R’s – Resist & Reform – from the framework called the 4 R’s of Social Transformation.
- Blue Cross NC Healthy Food Advocacy Cohort – Monthly peer-to-peer coaching begins.
- Begin providing support for SouthEast Regional Food Council development

Quarter 3
- Hosted Statewide Community Food Gathering – Transformational Community: A Way Forward.
- Blue Cross NC Healthy Advocacy Cohort – Peer–to-peer coaching | Virtual Lunch & Learn on Policy Updates & Experiences
- Mid-Year Community Food Strategies Partner Meeting
- Western NC Food Systems Coalition and the Collective on Racial Equity joined Community Food Strategies’ as official partner organizations
- ROR policy session & coaching
- Continued TA for SouthEast Regional Food Council
- COGs – Advancing Food Systems Working group quarterly meeting

Quarter 4
- Quarter 4 Network Call discussed the other two R’s – Reimagine & Recreate – from the framework called the 4 R’s of Social Transformation.
- BCBS Healthy Advocacy Cohort – Peer–to-peer coaching | Virtual Lunch & Learn session featured expertise from Budget & Tax Center on insights on the HR1 and provide policy/advocacy forecast for 2026-2027.
- Community Food Strategies’ Strategy Session – reflected and celebrated our year and outlined our work for 2026.
- ROR Storytelling & Evaluation session & coaching
- Provided TA for SouthEast Regional Food Council, Gaston Food Council, and Catawba Food Council
- COGs – Advancing Food Systems Working group

Focus Areas For 2026

Re-frame our guiding frameworks:

Community Food Strategies adopts two key frameworks to guide our approach: Solidarity Economies (SE) Principles and Racial Justice.

Offer Solidarity Economies Principles as a Guiding Framework and related
practices to the Network to offer clear models that move us towards a just food system
Educate the Network on foundations of SE Principles, highlighting
investment strategies for NC-based regional food value chains and food-justice ecosystems
Use SE Principles as a form of internal project accountability

Uplift justice-based models like Shared Gifting:

We will offer training, share tools and model practices that support coalitions to see food systems change within the context of mutual relationship and interconnection, building towards a food system that is human-centered and justice-based. We will support local groups to practice/adopt Shared Gifting, or other similar abundance-based funding methods.

Shared Gifting: offer training and support so that local groups are able to host shared gifting circles and incorporate shared gifting practices in their home communities, spreading this proven model for abundance-based and relationship building funding.

Build and practice language justice skills:

Incorporate language justice approaches as part of a larger conversation around building inclusive and international ecosystems of connection and care.

Offer racial justice foundations trainings to the Network (through our partnership with CORE)
Model language access & language justice practices, and support food coalitions to do the same into their local work
Elevate food labor as an important aspect of a just food system/eco-system

Support food coalitions to influence policy, from local actions to state (and federal) legislation.

Our goal is that the Network is increasing its energy/interest in engaging in food-related policy actions.

Expand policy & advocacy concepts to embrace the 4Rs for social transformation, and encourage all food coalitions to see their work as policy-related through this lens.

Build stronger connections across the network:

We are committed to intentional relationship-building to keep our network resilient, connected and impactful. We will host 6 Regional Gatherings, 4 Quarterly Calls, and 2 leadership cohorts.

Host 6 Regional Gatherings where we will present Solidarity Economics Principles and encourage each region to reflect on their local work as it relates to principled and values based food economies at a regional level
Engage local food coalitions across NC through strategic networking, including Quarterly Network Connection Calls

Host Cohort Learning & Coaching:

- Facilitate the Roots of Resilience community of practice, thru June 2026
- Facilitate the Healthy Food Advocacy Cohort, thru Dec 2027

Commitment to values-aligned partnerships:

Continue to build relational accountability across the partner organizations that make up the Community Food Strategies project team. Our goal is to be in reciprocal working relationships with the leaders and team members of each partner organization.

Our commitment is to continue to evolve such that the values, practices, and partnerships that make up this project allow for the work to support local food coalitions to craft our food system based in justice

Budget Breakdown

2025 Finances $915,299

Supported by NC BCBSF & USDA

How Did We Financially Support Our Network ($148,065)

We understand that food coalitions regularly face challenges for consistent funding and that many organize and coordinate with low staff capacity or volunteer labor. To honor people’s expertise and time we created multiple ways to support food coalition members participation through the FIRE mentor stipend, Roots of Resilience cohort member stipend, Statewide Gathering Speaker stipend, and Statewide Gathering scholarships. Coalitions were also resourced through Shared Gifting participatory grantmaking which directly supported community based work. In total, more than 49 individuals and 11 organizations were supported across these financial support offerings.

*In the community resourcing pie chart, name that – “These ‘community resourcing’ numbers are reflected in both Statewide Gathering and community support dollars in the overall budget breakdown data.