Community Marketplace & Garden
Hello and thank you for visiting my fundraiser!
My mission as a chef and a Black woman is to help heal and support my people by strengthening the relationship between food and community. It is critical for us to be knowledgeable of and provide ourselves with nutritional options, form healthy habits and maintain sustainable lifestyles. My part in that is to bring healthy affordable food to Tampa by opening my first brick and mortar location, a fresh food eatery and community garden. My vision is a nourishing, easily sustainable version of the corner stores I grew up frequenting in Baltimore City, MD. I want the eatery to be community based with a focus on accessibility, viability and elevating our diets by offering prepared meals, market items on an affordable budget and teaching sustainable lifestyle habits.
The eatery and marketplace will offer a rotating menu based on seasonal produce, well sourced proteins and ingredients. Community members and visitors alike will be able to purchase farmers market fresh produce, organic meats, proteins, grains, legumes, herbs, customizable salt/seasoning blends and EatsandSuch Marketplace’s signature line items. I will also offer shelf space for local and non-local small businesses to retail their items, hosting monthly pop-ups with a focus on Black and women owned shops. I will also be offering group nutrition and cooking classes at little to no cost.
My goal is not just to advise, but show how we can make changes to heal the years of damage done to our bodies, households and families by living unhealthy lifestyles. The causes (miseducation, Western diets and food deserts) have ravaged our communities, rooted in systematic racism, poverty and inaccessibility.
As a Culinary Doula, I will also be expanding my pregnancy and postpartum nutrition program to offer education and hands-on paid work experience to low income expecting and new parents.
The community garden will also offer customers and residents of the neighborhood the opportunity to learn gardening skills so they can start their own herb and produce plots at home.
If you'd like to be part of my mission, please take a moment to donate, repost or tell a friend. I invite you to keep up with my journey on IG at @_joydoe and come visit when we open! I will be launching the shops website and social media pages very soon and will post as soon as I do.
I believe that the community can heal from the inside out and I need you to help us do it. For us, by us.
- Chef Joy
*other ways to support is to shop my online marketplace at www.EatsandSuch.com ,
all proceeds directly fund my opening efforts*
