The Poughkeepsie Plenty Food Coalition is a group of individuals and organizations that have envisioned Poughkeepsie as a food city where everyone can secure, prepare, enjoy and benefit from healthy food.
We are working to organize our community and build a diverse movement for change to ensure the right for all residents of the City of Poughkeepsie to secure sufficient and nutritious food. The mission of the Poughkeepsie Plenty Food Coalition is to ensure the right for all in the City of Poughkeepsie to access sufficient and nutritious food, through project planning and coordination, policy monitoring and advocacy, and capacity building.
This community collaboration, prompted by a sense of possibility around involving many residents in fostering new cycles of fresh food abundance, an awareness of – and a commitment to ending – food insecurity in our community and the opportunity to conduct research in partnership with Vassar College, began in 2010. In 2011, this joint initiative, implemented as a collaboration of several lead partners, including the Poughkeepsie Farm Project, Dutchess Outreach, Cornell Cooperative Extension Dutchess County, Dutchess County Department of Health and Vassar College, was one of only 10 projects nationally to be awarded a highly competitive two-year assessment and planning grant from the United States Department of Agriculture.