Engagement in Practice: Community Engaged Scholarship to Address Local Food Insecurity

Ohio’s Miami Valley was severely impacted by the recent economic crisis. As a result, more than 18% of households in Dayton, OH currently experience food insecurity. Last year, our local food bank partnered with more than 100 community agencies to distribute 9.8 million pounds of food to over 70,000 residents. In this case study, the author’s collaborative partnership with the a local food bank serves as a catalyst for the development of a cohesive, integrated teaching and scholarship program focused on community engagement. Several research and capstone projects aimed at improving efficiency and reducing operational costs at the food bank are summarized. Then, opportunities for expanding the scope and impact of the research agenda are discussed. Specifically, these opportunities focus on interdisciplinary collaborations centered on the use of sustainable urban agriculture as a means to increase access to fresh produce within the emergency food network, improve health outcomes for socially disadvantaged people, revitalize neighborhoods, and alleviate urban poverty. Finally, plans to incorporate formal assessment and reflective activities related to community engaged learning are presented. 1. Partnership Development The University of Dayton’s heritage focuses on building community, educating the whole person, and promoting social justice. As scholars in such a community, we are called to address critical, community-identified needs through community engaged scholarship. At the University of Dayton, the Fitz Center provides students, faculty, and community partners with resources to not only initiate and develop collaborations, but also develop and assess innovative communityengaged curriculum [1]. The Fitz Center hosts a variety of programs for initiating contact between faculty and community partners including open houses, monthly breakfasts, and bus tours. The monthly breakfasts and bus tours are generally themed – that is they focus on a specific community issue such as infant mortality, homelessness, food insecurity, etc. My partnership with The Foodbank, Inc. began on one of these bus tours. The purpose of this Engagement In Practice paper is to describe the development of a community-engaged scholarship program through a sustained partnership with The Foodbank, Inc.. Food banks serve as central warehouses that procure, collect, and distribute food to partner agencies including food pantries, community kitchens, shelters, etc. On a Fitz Center bus tour, I learned that The Foodbank serves over 70,000 residents by distributing food to more than 100 community partners. Last year, The Foodbank distributed nearly 10 million pounds of food (including more than 2 million pounds of fresh produce). The Foodbank’s warehouse was designed by Toyota and follows best practices with respect to facility layout and facility logistics. Specifically, items move through the warehouse from back-to-front and layouts for repacking operations are optimized. Thus, the operations within the warehouse already operate at very high levels of efficiency. Furthermore, the staff at The Foodbank embrace a culture of continuous improvement. When they learned of my background in applied operations research, they were eager to collaborate on projects to improve the efficiency of operations and reduce expenses. We immediately identified two projects related to vehicle routing which will be discussed in the next section. In follow up discussions with food bank personnel, I also learned that The Foodbank wishes to support neighborhood revitalization efforts and improve access to fresh produce by constructing a sustainable urban garden. The Foodbank’s warehouse is located in a blighted urban neighborhood, and industrial waste has contaminated the property’s soil. Therefore, all produce must be grown above ground. In summer 2016, proof of concept for the garden was demonstrated. Approximately 50 raised beds, built on an unused asphalt parking lot, were used to grow a variety of crops that were distributed through The Foodbank’s free market and mobile food pantries. Many sustainable practices were implemented, including the use of low carbon emission cinder blocks to build the beds, the installation of a pollinator garden, and the creation of a composing site. This summer, the garden will be expanded. The details of both completed and upcoming projects related to sustainable urban agriculture are also provided below. The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. In section 2, four recent projects are summarized using two different frameworks for conducting research with community partners. The first framework provides a more traditional approach in which researchers work for community partners, and the second approach utilizes a community-engaged methodology that focuses on working with our partners. The first three projects were developed using the traditional framework, while the fourth utilizes the community-engaged framework. In section 3, additional opportunities for incorporating assessments related to community-engaged learning are discussed. 2. Project Design and Execution The first three projects described in this section follow a more traditional research methodology as shown below in Figure 1 [2]. With this approach, university partners tend to work for community partners. Following this methodology, my students, colleagues, and I first identified interesting problems and research questions in conjunction with The Foodbank staff. Then, the research team began designing and conducting the research. We worked closely with our partners at The Foodbank to ensure we had the most accurate data and that our solution approaches were in line with The Foodbank’s mission to distribute food to people in our area. As my partnership with The Foodbank has grown, our projects are developed using a more community-engaged methodology as shown in Figure 2 [2]. Using this methodology, we still work closely with our partners to develop our research questions, but now, our projects focus more on the co-creation of knowledge as well as social and cultural change. Thus far, students have either participated in the projects as part of a summer research experience (community gardens) or through an Engineering Management master’s capstone project (donation collection and audit scheduling). To successfully complete the capstone project, students are expected to identify a significant problem, locate the necessary data and information to solve the problem, and utilize the proper quantitative tools to develop and implement a solution. Students submit a final report that is evaluated on problem significance, review of the literature, data collection and analysis, methodology, and results. Plans to incorporate assessment relative to community engaged outcomes are discussed in section 3. Figure 1. Community-Focused Scholarship Figure 2. Community-Engaged Scholarship 2.1 Improving Operational Efficiency As mentioned previously, earlier projects focused on improving efficiency and reducing operational costs. Transportation related costs are among the largest of The Foodbank’s operating expenses, and the research team identified several different vehicle routing projects. The details for two recent vehicle routing projects are provided below. The first project develops routes for collecting donations from local retailers, and the second project focuses on routing for compliance audits. 2.1.1 Donation Collection Identifying Research Questions – At the time of this study, five trucks collect donations from more than 60 local retailers, and these retailers provide donations between one and five days each week. Some retailers enforce dock time restrictions. Therefore, The Foodbank must decide which trucks to send to each location on each day. To complicate routing decisions, two of the five trucks operated by The Foodbank were donated from a large national retailer and are currently adorned with their corporate logo. Because of this, three other large retailers have requested that these two trucks not be used to collect donations from their stores. Designing and Conducting Research – Optimizing the routing schedule for the full set of store locations was originally presented as a vehicle routing problem with time windows and incompatible loading constraints. Through a collaborative effort between researchers and food bank personnel, the truck drivers agreed to begin their routes one hour earlier (6:30 am local time) to eliminate the dock time restrictions; thus, simplifying the problem. Analyzing & Interpreting Data – During the course of this study, our collaborators from The Foodbank provided an initial clustering of stores based on collection needs and loading constraints. This clustering resulted in 18 required routes (of the 25 routes available – 5 trucks times 5 days). This provided additional capacity for other programs such as deliveries to partner agencies and mobile food pantries. A traveling salesman problem was used to optimize the routing of the stores within the clusters. Optimal routing of the clusters resulted in a reduction of over 22% in the weekly total distance traveled. A local search heuristic was then used to improve the store clustering and resulted in an additional 7% improvement. Disseminating Results & Planning Next Steps – This study was completed as part of a student’s capstone project, and the results were published and presented at the Industrial and Systems Engineering Research Conference [3]. 2.1.2 Auditor Travel Identifying Research Questions –In addition to the donations received from local business and citizens, The Foodbank also receives funding from state and federal agencies. For compliance purposes, each of The Foodbank’s 100+ partner agencies must receive an annual on-site audit. In this work, we examine how to effectively schedule on-site audits while satisfying the differing stakeholders in the food bank system. Designing an