2017 Food Justice Awards

2017 NYC Food Justice Awards 

Milk & Dignity Campaign Workers of Migrant Justice/Justicia Migrante

Migrant Justice's mission is to build the voice, capacity, and power of the farmworker community in Vermont and engage community partners to organize for economic justice and human rights. Through ongoing investment in leadership development, Migrant Justice members deepen their skills in community education and organizing for long-term systemic change. From this basis the members have defined community problems as a denial of rights and dignity and have prioritized building a movement to secure these fundamental human rights to 1) Dignified Work and Quality Housing; 2) Freedom of Movement and Access to Transportation; 3) Freedom from discrimination; 4) Access to Health Care. In October of this year, farmworker leaders from Migrant Justice and the CEO of Ben & Jerry’s jointly signed the Milk with Dignity agreement. The legally-binding contract establishes Ben & Jerry’s as the first company in the dairy industry to implement the worker-driven human rights program.

Adam Liebowitz from the North Star Fund and Community Food Funder

Adam is a staff member at North Star Fund and directs Community Food Funders (CFF), a philanthropic organizing project for funders in the tri-state area to invest in the transition to an equitable, ecologically sound, and sustainable regional food system. Through CFF, Adam has highlighted the work of numerous groups in our region and emphasized to funders the importance of supporting grassroots organizing and movement building. Adam He has a rich history in the nonprofit sector and extensive experience in community organizing and development, urban farming, program design and management, youth development, and environmental justice. Prior to joining North Star Fund, Adam worked as an independent consultant to nonprofit organizations and private firms specializing in food systems planning and food access projects in New York. Before that, he worked at The Point CDC in the South Bronx where he trained Hunts Point youth as community organizers able to establish their own projects and campaigns and helped lead coalitions of advocacy groups focused on social and environmental justice. He created an urban agriculture and food justice program that included cooking and nutrition classes, public health outreach, the establishment of a local CSA, and vegetable gardens across multiple sites.

Why Hunger 

WhyHunger is a grassroots support organization working to build resilient, powerful and unified networks and alliances of grassroots leaders and community-based organizations working at the intersection of the root causes of hunger and poverty. WhyHunger works in close allyship with our grassroots partners to transform our current food system into one that nourishes whole communities and ensures the rights of all people to food, land, water and sustainable livelihoods. We don’t just ask why. We find solutions to hunger that transform and last.

Tom Cat Worker of Brandworkers 

In March of this year, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) displaced over two dozen workers, each with over ten years of experience, from Tom Cat Bakery in the city’s first I-9 audit in a decade. By simultaneously organizing a response to both ICE and Tom Cat’s destructive actions, the Tom Cat workers have mounted the most sustained resistance to a workplace audit in US history. By sharing their experience and learnings widely, they’ve inspired immigrant workers and their allies across the food chain and are at the forefront of a movement for immigrant justice in the Trump era.

Please join us for what promises to be a night filled with celebration for justice and our wins!