Name: Theo Cornick

Social Justice Group: Access to Healthy Foods

Date of Fieldwork: February 17, 2022

Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s): lauren Ornelas (Food Empowerment Project)

Type of Fieldwork: Interview

What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?

On Feb 17, 2022, Bayo, Atticus and I met with Lauren Ornelas from the Food Empowerment Project. Lauren is the founder of The Food Empowerment Project. The Food Empowerment Project’s goal is to create more sustainable food in America. They are a non-profit organization that is located in San Jose, California. They encourage Healthy Food Choices. They are a vegan organization founded in 2007. Lauren believes that the government should be really focusing on this topic as they are not focusing on it enough. We also talked about the ocean and how wildlife such as fish and how their population was decreasing by the margin. She stated that some of the fish that are being killed are not purposeful. She said, “Imagine there was no life under the waves.”

Here is my personal reaction to this interview. Lauren stated that this issue needs to be way more recognized, she and her organization work with other organizations around America and she believes it’s really important to know what other organizations are doing the same work as her. I personally agree with these statements that she mentioned and I think it’s really important that we focus more on Access to Healthy foods in America. Thank you, Lauren, for meeting with us!