KINGSTON – The City of Kingston has released an RFP for a Food System Plan, which will help strengthen Kingston’s local food system by addressing food insecurity and increasing access to nutritious foods.
The city will utilize its federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funding for the Food System Plan, as per the Kingston Economic Recovery Plan. The project will be managed by the city’s Department of Health and Wellness.
The plan will provide a blueprint for how Kingston can support strengthening the local food system to improve food security, through specific actions and through collaborative action with community partners.
“When the COVID-19 pandemic hit the City of Kingston, we, like many municipalities, witnessed the vulnerabilities in our food system,” said Mayor Steven Noble. “In response, the community stepped up in a big way to make sure that no one in our community went hungry. When we started creating the Economic Recovery Plan, food insecurity was top of mind, and funding to develop a food systems plan was included. We hope this plan will lead to an increase in local food production and will provide actionable ways to improve our resilience in times of crisis and beyond.”
Project Manager Kristin Kessler of the City of Kingston’s Department of Health and Wellness said, “Equitable access to desirable, nutritious food is an important contributor to individual health, as well as an indicator of a healthy community and food system. However, the COVID-19 pandemic showed us that, unfortunately, our food systems are much more fragile than many of us thought.”
She said as a registered dietitian “who has a passion for making access to nutritious food a right, not a privilege, it is with great joy that I release this RFP to hire a consultant to assess the strength of our local food system, then support the City of Kingston in identifying ways it can help make it stronger, more resilient, and more equitable for all residents of Kingston.”
The RFP can be found at: https://kingston-ny.gov/filestorage/8463/13525/RFP_Kingston_Food_System_Plan.pdf
