Revised Proposal-Reclaiming the Margins

I've been revising my proposal for my video, because I want to use a similar topic for my thesis. I'm trying to use the techniques we learned about painting a visual picture of the film...it's getting better but still needs some work.

RECLAIMING THE MARGINS

Lloyd Bell steps out of his trailer in the Royal Palms RV Park and picks a handful of snow peas that are growing from a plastic tub on the curb. He walks over to a neighboring resident and hands her the harvest, explaining that they would be good in the Japanese dish she's planning to prepare for dinner. Bell lived on the street for four years before moving into a one-bedroom trailer with help from a non-profit program. Now he and other formerly homeless residents of the community are sharing their knowledge and bounty of organic vegetables with their neighbors. If a formerly homeless community can change how they think about food, how can the rest of us?

Texas has a poor record of feeding its population well. In 2006, nearly 16 percent of Texans lacked access to enough food for a "full, active life", according to the Agriculture Department. Only New Mexico and Mississippi residents had lower food security. About 2.6 million people rely on food stamps in the state, but recently Texas was ranked last in the nation for its food stamp program, which does a poor job of processing food stamp applications and of getting eligible low-income people to apply. With food prices at the highest they’ve been in decades, and wages slow to catch up to the cost of living, more people will continue to be affected.
It's not only that Texans on a tight budget aren’t getting enough food, but they aren’t getting the right kinds of food. Research repeatedly finds much higher rates of obesity in poor areas than in wealthy areas. Indications are that part of the problem is the food that low-income people are buying is high in fat and sugar content, and low in nutritive value. This trend in unhealthy eating affects children as well as adults. State health officials estimate that 35 percent of Texas schoolchildren are obese. And students in middle and high school tend to be less fit than elementary students. America as a whole, and Texas in particular, is growing a generation of overweight kids, who are more prone to diabetes and heart disease, at a time when the health care system of the entire country is in crisis. Where are these problems coming from, and what is the solution?

This documentary will examine the issue of healthy food access, and how one non-profit is attempting to solve the problem through community building. In a mobile home community just outside downtown Austin, rows of well-manicured lawns give little indication of the traffic jammed state highway along which the park is located.

Parked at the end of a row of 5-wheelers is a one-bedroom trailer with a lush vegetable garden growing in the triangle of grass next to a dumpster. This is the home of Steven Hebberd, a 32-year-old farmer on a mission. Hebberd, with help from the non-profit Mobile Loaves and Fishes, is trying to feed the homeless. But unlike most non-profits who work from outside the communities they help, Hebberd is working on building a community from the inside. His idea, called the Karpophoreo Project (which means to bear good fruit and to bear good deeds in Greek), was to turn neglected backyards and lots into vegetable gardens, which would be built and maintained by the homeless and formerly homeless community. He wanted to find uses for unused space, and to create jobs for an underprivelged group of people.

The project has 11 gardens around the city so far, but what has become clear is that the participants value the friendships that have developed, more than the paychecks. A community has formed among the people living in the park, around the concept of organically grown food. Now, a chain smoker who eats most of his meals out of cans or boxes grows fresh snow peas in a box on his porch. At a weekly breakfast get together, the eggs and frozen sausages are mixed in with leftover spinach and chard from the previous day's harvest. A woman who last year was homeless and destitute has so much kale growing in her garden that she gives it away to friends.

This community is making small changes in how they interact with food, which could lead to bigger changes in their health and their prospects for the future.