Institute and its partners win grant to continue efforts to remedy food insecurity

The Rutgers Institute for Corporate Social Innovation is among the recipients of a New Jersey Economic Development Authority grant to help strengthen the state’s food security infrastructure. The institute, known as RICSI, is part of Rutgers Business School.

The state’s Economic Development Authority approved more than $9.3 million in grant awards to 23 organizations under the Food Equity and Economic Development Pilot Program. It’s the second round of a total $30 million distributed to 73 organizations dedicated to strengthening the state’s food security infrastructure. 

RICSI’s portion of the grant ($119,700) will help to support a food equity program developed in collaboration with Newark Science and Sustainability and the City of Newark’s Office of Sustainability, Resilience and Community Transformation. In total, the partners have received $499,484 from the NJEDA to continue their programming.

The collaboration is multi-faceted. It sponsors the participation of several hundred families in a community supported agriculture program that provides deliveries of fresh, locally grown produce; develops events to bring together communities of practice; and supports gamified digital food and nutrition education.

RICSI’s role is to design, develop and disseminate educational games to promote health-conscious nutrition and healthy behavioral lifestyles, said Jeana Wirtenberg, the institute’s executive director. To augment the impact of its AI-enabled learning games, RICSI will develop Action Learning Toolkits to equip local leaders with skills and resources for broader community education.

RICSI will also continue an integral part of its collaboration around food security by convening Communities of Practice events that allow individuals and organizations across different sectors to share insights and ideas and discuss both the barriers and opportunities facing the community. The aim of the events is to develop practical solutions to help mitigate the effect of social determinants of health on food insecurity. 

RICSI’s work on food equity is an important example of Rutgers Business School’s social impact in Newark and the surrounding communities of East Orange, Livingston, West Orange, Orange and Montclair.

The food equity collaboration builds upon RICSI’s recent work with NSAS funded through two Rutgers Equity Alliance for Community Health (REACH) grants.