Diane Moss: Removing Barriers to Good Food Is a Community Effort
Grant Oliphant.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah.
Crystal Page:How are you today?
Grant Oliphant:Crystal Page, I'm excellent. Thank you. And I I just wanna note for folks who are just joining us for the first time after, hearing last season that Crystal, with whom I'm privileged to work, has joined me as a cohost of the podcast, and we're, taking the opportunity now to open and close with some reflections about what we've heard and who we've spoken with.
Crystal Page:I'm so excited. Thank you, Grant. I'm so excited to be here with you. I love our work on Stop and Talk, the podcast, and I have to say I'm thrilled today because you interviewed a Southeast San Diego hero.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. What a joy. The whole conversation was such a joy, and I I think the listeners will be, no matter what, will be lifted up by what they hear. So we spoke with Diane Moss, who is the CEO and cofounder of Project New Village. That's a community organization which fosters food sovereignty in Southeast San Diego, and she is a community organizer, activist, transformer, dreamer.
Grant Oliphant:She denies being a visionary, but, boy, she's dedicated her career to being a visionary. Wouldn't you say?
Crystal Page:I a 100% agree, and we had the privilege of awarding her the leaders in belonging award from the Prebys Foundation this year because she's kind of a big deal. She has vision. She brings people together.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. And, actually, it's, one of the one of the ways we came to interview her today was just because of the leaders in belonging award and how we experienced her in the course of that. You played a major role in administering that program and and the, finding Diane as a as a recipient. What I can tell you, she deserved the recognition, and our listeners will see why.
Crystal Page:Let's jump in.
Grant Oliphant:Okay. Let's do it. Alright. Diane Moss, thank you so much for being with with us here.
Diane Moss:Thank you. It's a privilege being here.
Grant Oliphant:Well, it's a joy having you. I'm gonna start maybe in a place you weren't expecting, but you know we're gonna talk about, so it's okay. So the the place I wanna start is you were one of the Prebys Foundation's inaugural Leaders in Belonging, and, this is an announcement we made a few months ago where we identified 5 leaders in the community who are really demonstrating through their work a commitment to making San Diego a community for everybody, and doing it in dynamic ways with different audiences, and we were delighted to have you among that group. So I wanna start by asking you, what's it been like?
Diane Moss:Can I just say the 1st week, just my regular neighbors, people I work with, I got phone calls and emails saying thank you for lifting up our community. Thank you for representing us well. This I didn't expect that. I didn't know who this announcement, who hears what, but that was overwhelmingly a good thing. You know, we're pushing a new agenda, this urban ag in our neighborhood
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Diane Moss:And everybody's not in favor. So to hear people come out and say what I was doing for this geographical space, I just, I felt good but I also felt I have an obligation to move further. Opportunities are coming our way and we're taking advantage of those those opportunities to revitalize this community of Southeastern San Diego.
Grant Oliphant:I that actually gave me goosebumps when you said that. To hear that that was the reaction you got and from friends and neighbors and people maybe that you you just saw on the street. What do you think they meant when they were saying thank you for lifting up our community? Why was that important to them?
Diane Moss:So I live in a community historically has been disinvested, and people feel looked, that people haven't looked out for them. I live in an area where people can look at their loans with their papers and see that black folks weren't supposed to live there and somebody else had to help them get in. So redlining is a part of our history.
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Diane Moss:So to be recognized for doing good things or making good things happen in this area, it resonates for people in the area. These are my neighbors. I've lived in this community since the eighties, and people have watched our journey. And it's not always been a frontline journey. We just do the work every day.
Diane Moss:We enjoy working together, but now there's some recognition that this this is a good thing that we're doing. And it connects us not only together in the neighborhood, but people outside of our neighborhoods can see some of the assets that we have here in this space.
Grant Oliphant:You know, what strikes me is the foundation created the Leaders in Belonging program because we wanted to inspire other people with stories like yours. What I didn't think about is that it can also be inspiration for people who are working alongside you and in the community where you're working. So let's talk about that work because now now let now let's come to really the beginning of the story about you and what you do. Can you talk to us a little bit about your organization and how you how you got into it?
Diane Moss:So again, I say I lived here. I moved in the community in the eighties. I then ran another nonprofit working with children and an opportunity came along to look at working together in a collaborative fashion to revitalize our community. This is back in 1994. So we started working to to bring children home, particularly African American children who had been separated.
Diane Moss:Their families are separated. So bringing them, trying to reunite them in the community. But then 2008 came, and I was at a conference for nonprofit people, organizations, and I sat next to a woman. She is currently the head of Food Shed and sovereignty solidarity farm up in North County. She impressed upon me that food justice was a social justice issue.
Diane Moss:That in our neighborhoods where we satisfied with the food we were getting and I had never thought of this. I'm from South Central Los Angeles and I figure you just food wasn't a social issue. You get what you get. Right. But then when I could see that decisions were made that were not in our best interest, I'm a community organizer.
Diane Moss:I figured that's where my skills were, to convince people that we worth worthy that we should have the same programs, the same access to to good food and other basic services as anyone else. But in order to get that, we needed to work together and we had needed to have skin in the game. So around 2011, we had an opportunity to, start a community garden. I talked to my neighbors. 2 things they wanted in the neighborhood, a community garden and a farmer's market.
Diane Moss:So those were the very first things that Project New Village, as a newly established, nonprofit, we set out to do. So we started the 1st community garden in 2011. That's where we are at Mount Hope. And at 2010, we opened up our first farmers market. Learning a lot of lessons there.
Diane Moss:Again, opportunities have come our way. So after we were temporarily in this space for about 5 years, it's public space, a sign went up that said the space was for sale.
Grant Oliphant:Right? Yeah. Well, you're on it.
Diane Moss:We're on it. Yeah. But they were gonna sell it and we it was temporary occupation and we were gonna have to leave.
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Diane Moss:But I work with a collective and people with different skillsets. So a guy named Rich Juarez, a developer in the community, always wanted to develop a grocery store. I saw him walking around the neighborhood. What are you doing? We started working together and we, along with Rich, along with academic advisors, academic folks, a cross sectional group of, professional folks, as well as community residents, we began to vision what we could do with this space. Rich said, let's bid for it.
Diane Moss:Let's go against the conventional infill developers because we got stake in the game. From my point of view, I wouldn't have made that step but I had total trust. I had worked with Rich for 10 years. So we bid. We won.
Diane Moss:So when we won, then you have to have the money to to buy the property. And then another, the minor miracle started happening for us. We met the conservation fund, National Foundation. We built a relationship with them over 4 months or so, and then they made us an offer.
Diane Moss:If you could raise $100,000 in 6, 6 weeks, I think it was 6 weeks, 6 months, We will give you the money a loan to buy this property. So we, that was our first challenge and we made it. We raised the money.
Grant Oliphant:That wasn't a small amount of money in those days.
Diane Moss:No. And we were doing rent parties. We weren't some big non profit. We were a grassroots organization. I threw rent parties to pay the rent.
Diane Moss:I don't think I was getting a salary at that point. It was just the love of what we were doing. But we did it. Some people came in and gave money. Closers at the end, they said when you get close, let us know and we'll we'll make that happen.
Diane Moss:So there's a guy that we met through the Catalyst who came in and we said, we're $15,000 short. He says, I got you.
Grant Oliphant:Wow.
Diane Moss:Because cash and bids. And so we we got the we got the loan. Yep. 3 years later, we paid that loan off. That's 2022.
Diane Moss:So we are the property owners of this property underneath the garden. And then we had always worked with the community. This is a community driven process, so we have a a dream of a building that we want. So, of course, some of the people who gave us the money, one guy, a elderly guy that didn't know us, he read the book project 16 19. He said, I didn't know black people had it so bad in history.
Diane Moss:I'm like, okay.
Grant Oliphant:So the the book served its purpose. Right?
Diane Moss:It did. But this man and his family then came back and said they didn't say anything. They sent me a check to my house for $300,000. All that check all it said is get that property.
Grant Oliphant:$300,000.
Diane Moss:Get that property. No reports. No nothing else. And then he recommended his friend. So that friend is the, architect that we're working with to design design the space.
Diane Moss:So we own this property, and now we have a design that we wanna put together. And every day, we work with our neighbors to see what's the functioning and the vision for, this space. We are currently in the middle of 3 things. 1 is raising dollars or a capital campaign. That's new for us, but we're making some traction.
Diane Moss:The building or the capacity building for the organization. Again, we're small. Yep. So we need other people that know have better knowledge about managing money, about managing programs, and predicting the future. So we need to do that.
Diane Moss:That's the organizational piece. We need to raise the money. And then it's the construction itself. I've never built a building. So here is where you work with people.
Diane Moss:You have to trust experts, build relationships, and move forward. So we are at the beginning as of today reviewing a proposal from a guy that we want to be our contract manager.
Grant Oliphant:Fantastic.
Diane Moss:So lots of opportunities.
Grant Oliphant:There is so much in that story, and and, and it's such a happy story. And the fact that it starts from literally from the ground up, and the community through you, taking ownership of its destiny in a in a whole variety of ways. I mean, literally, that's what what you've been doing.
Diane Moss:But can I say here, I'm not a visionary? I get the opportunity to be at a table with others, so I'm sharing a vision that's been shared with me. Rich Juarez died in 2019 before we closed the deal. It was his idea. He passed away of cancer and and then 2 other of our board members were contributing.
Diane Moss:They died in 2022 and 2023. So there's a legacy here. We're doing this.
Grant Oliphant:I I, I remember when you and I were sitting at, at lunch together on the day that we were celebrating the leaders in belonging, you were actually in a very reflective mood that day. And it's part of your character that you're very humble and reflective. And you were saying to me you were thinking about the people who had helped you get to this place, and with whom you shared the success, and who had passed on. That was a powerful thing to hear from you, and you just did you just and brought them into the room again. I just wanna honor that and thank you for your willingness to do that.
Grant Oliphant:Why you know, people think about, in in this era of of urban farmers markets, you know, I think it's sort of a commonplace that people think, that that there is access to food and there is access to produce, and if people wanted it, they could get it. Why is urban agriculture so important, and why are you why do you see what you're doing as the social justice issue that it is?
Diane Moss:Well, the genesis of the reason why we don't have food is because of a disinvestment in the community. I can look at where there may have been a Safeway that went out of the community and now it's the boys and girls club because I can look at the design and say that that was a supermarket. So we don't have the chain stores. We don't have the access to food that others do. But what we do have is people who've lived in their homes for a long time.
Diane Moss:So if they wanna grow food and sell it, they can. So we're cultivating growers in the neighborhood. We have we want hyper local food. We want people to know. You know, there's been these studies of our neighborhood, and so what we know is that they call economic leakage.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah.
Diane Moss:People have some dollars to buy. They're just going someplace else. It's our job to make it worthy to buy things in your community. We get it. We're in San Diego.
Diane Moss:It's a tourist town. You should go everywhere. But but you should make a point to invest where we live so that where we live can be better. In terms of a revitalization, we have a game. We have a role to play.
Diane Moss:Can't others are not just gonna come in and make things better for us? There's some things that we can do, so we set about the business of doing those things. I see vacant lots that have been vacant forever or others that have made mistakes. So I live here. I'm not gonna make those mistakes, and we wanna eat the food.
Diane Moss:So we can't we have to be very careful about how we source our food, and how we take care of the food. We're very lucky to have master gardeners working with us in our neighborhood that have been growing food for a long time. We can really tap in on some of the assets that are there to make things better.
Grant Oliphant:There were it's a very tricky business actually. How did you how did you come to learn or how did the group come to learn? How to, how to successfully farm and turn this into an ongoing concern?
Diane Moss:Well everything we do is in collaboration. So farmers teach other farmers how to grow food. Right? We're members of the San Diego Food System Alliance. They've been a a great resource to us to greens, you need to buy those greens from us.
Diane Moss:Right? I think I think I'm selling greens, you need to buy those greens from us. Right? I think I can compete with that price that, who is it? Restaurant Depot or or, Smart and Final.
Diane Moss:And from us, you know where it came and we didn't use any fertilizer, anything wrong. And you help the community when you purchase from the community. So really we have opportunities to teach about sovereignty, but that all of us have to play a role. One role is to be a consumer. But other roles as we try to change this food system are the producers of food, the distributors of food.
Diane Moss:We're big on the composting and recycling, if you will. So every aspect of the food system plays out in our neighborhood and we figure we should have a part in making it better. Everybody's gotta eat, that's kind of essential. So there'll always be a market for food. So why not do that for ourselves?
Diane Moss:I think that's You
Grant Oliphant:know, though though though, and I've I've noticed this about you before, you have such a clear understanding of the system here that you make it sound easy, and it's not easy. I know it's not easy, and I just I just, again, wanna call attention to that because I think what you're doing is extraordinary, and it's hard. It's extraordinary in part because it's hard, but it's also so logical, and that's what you manage to capture the essence of. The the Prebys Foundation has a view of our work, which is that, we care about community well-being, and, you know, we knit together all the things that we do under this broad framework of we wanna create a better, stronger community. And we and we look at that notion of community well-being through the lens of purpose, opportunity, and belonging.
Grant Oliphant:It's just the idea that people have to know that whatever they see as their destiny in the world they can pursue it, that there are opportunities for them to contribute and be successful, and they have to feel like they're part of the community that And I'm curious how you see your work, And I'm curious how you see your work connected to those themes, and I know you do because you talk about many of the same things, but I'm just curious how you see the connection between what you're doing and the vision that we're trying to advance in the community?
Diane Moss:So I think we serve as an example to our community members that, we can get some things done. You know, there are some that, I don't know, they've abandoned space in terms of hope or thinking things will be better. But we serve as an example that we the things that we can do. If we work together, we can make some accomplishments. So when I see people come around to our events and then they bring their children and their grandchildren, we've gotten to the point where we measure smiles.
Diane Moss:We're trying to look at happiness. We do community workdays, once a month. And we I mean, we're working with weeding and doing things for the garden, but we're measuring we have a happiness board. So we're looking at your senses and how we interact with the planet and being good stewards of the planet because that's not something you get to pass on because of other issues. Everybody has to contribute to a better space.
Diane Moss:And so we take this opportunity to hopefully share lessons and possibilities and invite people to the journey. When we started a farmers market, the people around us, some of the people, our neighbors said, why are you taking space from a real business? People that can come and get jobs.
Grant Oliphant:Really?
Diane Moss:Uh-huh. So, I just bought whatever I was in the store for and said the train has already left the station. Neighbor, we're doing this. We'll see you down the road. But those were years ago and I get to see those same people.
Diane Moss:There's an elderly woman. When she sees me, she cries because she's the one for 20 minutes told me to kinda go away. Wow. And I took that thinking that you you don't know. Yeah.
Diane Moss:And so I saw her at a service and she just grabbed she don't know me well, but she grabbed me and hugged me and says, I'm sorry. What you all are doing is wonderful for the neighborhood. So I'm thinking things don't happen always in the time you think they're gonna happen, but just keep moving the needle. Keep moving. Right?
Diane Moss:And things happen. So we've got some momentum. What what what do you
Grant Oliphant:think was the impulse that made people want to say that initially and tell you to that that this couldn't succeed and you were taking space from real business. I mean, what what was that impulse?
Diane Moss:Well, this particular business, this where we are now used to be the O Urban League Training Center back in the nineties Yeah. And then it said blank. This just they demolished the building and it said blank. So there wasn't a lot of hope that things would come here. Yeah.
Diane Moss:But the woman told me, she says, well, black people don't grow food. And I'm thinking, so I'm a black person and I know people that grow food, so I don't know where that comes from. But that we were taking space, that this was a redevelopment zone and we really should let a real business come in. So maybe fear. Yeah.
Diane Moss:Right?
Grant Oliphant:And you were an I mean, it was an unknown. Right? I, I hadn't intended to ask you about this but I'm gonna follow my instinct on this, because I think it's important in the world that we're living in now that you said something a moment ago about about people not having hope, and and there is, a lot of that in the culture right now, the broader culture, not just in particular neighborhoods. There's this sense of things being complicated and out of control, and, and yet you are every day in the hope business and and trying to get people to focus on very practical ways of activating a particular view of the future where there's a reason to stick around for it, has it become more difficult for you to convey that or is it easier?
Diane Moss:So I think that, I'm gonna say it's getting easier because again, we live here, people are seeing what we're doing on the block. And I just gave a tour before coming here. Our 5 year plan is on Market Street. We've identified 5 opportunities to have green spaces. All of them doing different kinds of things.
Diane Moss:So I'm like, walk with us and see the vision. Yeah. Yeah. So we can show them before that we it was in our heads. But now we can show and then you can come and taste the food.
Grant Oliphant:Which is nothing makes it more real than that.
Diane Moss:Getting a elementary group of children to come and then give them strawberries from the garden. They don't taste like what comes out of the market. Yeah. Taste this. What do
Grant Oliphant:you hear from young people about this about this work?
Diane Moss:The ones I talked to seem to love it. They're some of the best people in terms of, what do we do? Composting? They like it. It could be, it doesn't have to be the most, the nicest or the cleanest work, but they like it.
Diane Moss:And then they continue to come from various schools or clubs and it's their projects. So I share the combination with the garden. We don't have a key. It's a combination and I tell people where they can find it. I don't have to be here for you to come and do something for the garden.
Diane Moss:So their high school students and many of the college students come. I have good connection with college students to come and help be stewards of this place.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. I think what's, among many other things that's important about that is that you are you really are giving the people that you're working with a tangible expression of what it's like to change the world for the better. You know, we talk about that in sort of grandiose terms a lot of the time, but so often it comes down to what you're doing in your own backyard or your own neighborhood or your own community, and you give living expression to that.
Diane Moss:Thank you. We say that our journey has been a series of minor miracles, and we only say minor because it's not the whole planet but our world. Yeah. It's it's making a big difference.
Grant Oliphant:That's fantastic. Tell us a little bit more about the other projects that you've got going. And it's a it's a fairly sizable list, but but what stands out to you right now in terms of the projects that you're excited about?
Diane Moss:So they're all connected around this food system. Right? So we have a mobile farmers market, the People's Produce Mobile Farmers Market. It's out 3 days a week, we have about 12 markets we do every month, pop up markets on the weekends and then we run 2 markets a day, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Our vision because we are self determining group of people, so we took one of our partners as a geographic the geography professor out at San Diego State, one of the co chairs.
Diane Moss:So we're a place making effort. So we took a map and looked at our food geography. So we share space with National City to the South, Limon Grove to the East. We took that area, we call it the Good Food District and our impact we wanna measure in this area. Not only what we consume in better health, but just better use of the space in terms of this new urban ag that's coming.
Diane Moss:It's here that we wanna have a map with dots on it that talks about the growing spaces. How much produce that we're bringing in from the community. You know, that I just know that there are resources or assets here that folks don't see that we're just pulling together. So the mobile farmers market, we sell, distribute the food but we also buy the food from people growing it within the neighborhoods and then everything is local. There's some traditional farmers but, larger San Diego County.
Diane Moss:This is connecting us to our other project. We have what we call the Growers Group or the Growers Collective. We have, this year we're planning to have 15 backyards that are growing food for us. And what we're finding is there's certain generosity in the people who live in the neighborhood. They won't sell to us.
Diane Moss:They just give us the food. Right. So now we have to figure out how to measure the generosity of the people that are hyperlocal in our neighborhoods. And then the third thing that we do is, the garden space. So the garden space we grow Mount Hope.
Diane Moss:We grow quite a bit of the fruit fruit there but it's a venue for social and educational programming. It's become a a wonderful gathering place for people who like putting their hands in the dirt and these concepts called food as medicine. So we do a variety of workshops, those kinds of things on-site. And our whole model is driven by community engagement. We don't make any decisions where residents haven't weighed in on what it is that we're doing.
Diane Moss:That means most things don't happen quickly. We have certain rounds we have to go through. Yeah. But we get some things done.
Grant Oliphant:And you have, you have this approach, community rising, where you activate the community around agendas as well.
Diane Moss:Yeah. We just got a grant. So now we can, in 2 months, hire our community, our first community engagement person. Then I can do some other kinds of things because I love community engagement work, but this guy is great that we're gonna hire.
Grant Oliphant:I'm I'm I'm curious if it is challenging. You know, one of the one of the sets of data I'm familiar with in the food space is that the more economically challenged a community is, the less access they have to healthy food, the more their food sources are dependent on convenience stores and dollar stores. It's a it's a a really unfortunate cycle. When you've worked to try and break that cycle through healthy food, was there a process of also educating people about, nutrition and about thinking about food differently? How did you approach that?
Diane Moss:Well, again, we do everything in collaboration. So I met a professor at San Diego State in nutrition department. Her students come out and accompany the truck when we go. One of the things, we have our share of people who, need subsidies to purchase the food. So we've gotten, grant sources so that we can provide a subsidy if they do a survey.
Diane Moss:The survey tells us about the population we serve so we can continue to get better. And then partnering with the students, they talk about because everything we have is seasonal, so we're not gonna have watermelon in December. So explaining to people the importance of seasonal food, local food, cause they're like, so what do we care if it's some from some place else? But again, the economic factors. So all of the things that can uplift community that are related to this food system, We try to talk about in our visual kinds of presentations and 1 on ones when we're at the, farmers market or the garden.
Grant Oliphant:I was gonna ask you how you how you work with the community to disrupt the cost of because local healthier food is weirdly more expensive than, the rock bottom convenient highly processed convenience food that is pushed in well, is pushed on the American consumer in general. So, and when people are making a choice to move away from that or to to introduce healthier food into their diet, one of the issues that comes up is cost. So you mentioned having subsidies available. Is there anything else that you do?
Diane Moss:So we have to teach this or share this that we are a equitable we are what we call a equitable food oriented development, the work that we do, this the village that we're putting together and what that means is can't sell you cheap food. If I sell you cheap food, somebody got cheated. Most times it's the grower. Since that grower might be your neighbor, we can't do that. So what we're aiming for is a fair cost for the food.
Diane Moss:And what we're committed to do as a nonprofit is to help raise subsidies so that the buyers in the community that need that can use that to access this food versus trying it to sell it to you cheap.
Grant Oliphant:So you create a virtuous cycle where yeah. That it, I I I love the idea of that, and it's it's important as an approach because, yeah, to your point, if you're cutting corners somewhere that means somebody's getting cut. And, it's part of it it it is no surprise that it's part of your holistic approach. I'm I'm curious, if that the the recognition that you've gotten from National Foundations has been in raising the profile of the work, here in San Diego, either with funders here in San Diego or with with other sources of support?
Diane Moss:Yes. The Alliance Health Care Foundation has been really wonderful to us. You know, in 2022 we went through the competition for the innovative award and to their credit, they awarded 2 awards that year. I think that we were we were proud that to get the award from them, but at the same time, they gave a second award in our same neighborhoods of Southeastern San Diego. So they then have been working with us ever since because they're invested in what we're doing to help make the connections with other, philanthropic efforts.
Diane Moss:So we're at the point where we've got a budget. We've raised maybe a little over a third of the budget. We still have money to raise in this capital campaign but we're feeling optimistic. They are my understanding is the public folks, government entities are usually the last ones to the table. So at this point, that's what I hear.
Diane Moss:This is not what I'm proficient at, I am trusting the partners that we have at the table. And, we feel fairly confident that we will raise the the several $1,000,000 in between us and and having what we need for this project. But we're looking in other directions where we've never looked before and again we have a a wonderful team that's set up to do that. There's a group out of Los Angeles. It's the, Angel City Advisors Group.
Diane Moss:They are advising us. They came. We met them because we're part of a national group called the, EFAD Network, if you will. EFAD is, Equitable Food Oriented Development. There's several of these projects and it's really folks like us.
Diane Moss:It's on the ground people that are changing this power dynamic if you will, and saying that, people who are eating the food are most impacted should be the people in decision making seats. We have embraced food sovereignty as where we want to go alongside with food justice because there's some disparities if you will that we need to address but we also need to address the the power issue in our community, and step up and play our role and encourage others to to play their role.
Grant Oliphant:The the concept of food sovereignty I think is really powerful and it points to something we should talk about which is the role of systems in what you're dealing with. You've referred to your neighborhood and community as not only a food desert, but a victim of food apartheid. Say a little bit more about that and and how that comes into play because I I don't think people looking from the outside quite appreciate what it's like to exist inside a food desert.
Diane Moss:I'm gonna use this example. A few weeks ago, a foundation that came from the biotech community was looking at us as a as a potential fundee, right, or someone they could fund. But the questions they asked, we didn't have the right answers and it just wasn't a fit. What they were looking for was more of a food bank. Mhmm.
Diane Moss:So in looking at food sovereignty, a food bank doesn't get it. A food bank you know, I grew up with food banks bringing food when we had an emergency situation or a holiday. It is not the way that a person wants to source their food week in week out. You have no choice of what it is that you're getting, and it could stop at any moment because you don't control it. It's the opposite end, from my opinion, to food sovereignty.
Diane Moss:So ours is we need to change the dynamic so that we own the system, by which we benefit. And in order to do that, you actively have to be engaged. So that's that's what we're self telling folks. When you come and you help us on a community day, you're not just helping us. We're establishing a new way of doing business, a new way of relating to your food, and and we can.
Diane Moss:We have the wherewithal to do this.
Grant Oliphant:Taking this, let's not well, you haven't named them, so we're not picking on them. But but taking the group that came in as an example, what what is difficult about helping people understand the difference between a food bank? And by the way, as you pointed out, food banks are essential.
Diane Moss:They are.
Grant Oliphant:They we have a couple of great ones in San Diego. We're very lucky to have them, so let's stipulate as to that. But to your point, they should be a stop gap solution, not a permanent solution to the food security issue that, that many food insecurity that many families face. So you're trying to make a shift to a system in which people actually can own the production of food and and profit from it and have easier access to neighborhood, grown food. Why is it difficult for people who are outside that system to understand it?
Grant Oliphant:So I
Diane Moss:think the thinking is that the whole neighborhood is like, poor, which it's not. And that why are we charging for food? And my answer is simply if we don't charge, how do we sustain it? Right? We gotta rely on some other source and that that doesn't fly.
Diane Moss:It doesn't have a a long range ending to that. Right? You give up control. It's, you're at the whim of somebody else as opposed to being able to be self determining and do what you think is right for your situation.
Grant Oliphant:You know, I think one of the things that America, you, hopefully learned during the pandemic when we, saw so many families suddenly depending on the food bank, was that that made sense as an as an emergency solution, but I I can't imagine anybody wanting to see that be the permanent solution for any family. And I think what you're doing is not only feeding people, but giving them dignity and giving them control over their own destiny. So when we talk at the Prebys Foundation about purpose, opportunity, and belonging, you had all 3 rolled up in that seems to me. Do you ever think about it in those terms?
Diane Moss:Yeah. When we we have our team meetings, we always talked about a dignity affirming process.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah.
Diane Moss:The way that we talk to people. I have a guy that worked for us, no longer works for us, but he wanted to regulate people's shopping experience and say, you could only get this. I says, clearly you and I are from the same generation and you grew up in those lines where they were giving away cheese or something, right? And you wanna control people's experience. I don't.
Diane Moss:I want them to control their own experience. And if the best stuff is early, then you have to get here earlier, right? It's, you wanna step in and be the big brother and that's not our role. So he he he didn't stay with us long.
Grant Oliphant:That that is such a powerful point though, in the nonprofit sphere in general. It's my observation that people stepping into quote unquote help often want to control what happens, and they have very definite ideas about what help looks like, who should who is worthy of help, when they're worthy of help. How do you work against that in the work that you're doing? You just I mean, you gave us a great example, but I imagine you've had to have this conversation a number of times.
Diane Moss:So I do more listening than I do talking and people know their lifestyles and they bring it in front of us and I think we should pay attention and try to work with instead of controlling what people do.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah.
Diane Moss:Yeah. I
Grant Oliphant:love that. I I I think that is, well to go back to your point, it is a dignity affirming practice. Yeah. Because most of us just simply want the freedom to be who we are, and when we go shopping to make the decisions that we make. So I'm I'm curious.
Grant Oliphant:You know, one of the things that doesn't get talked about in the in the context of of urban ag, but I we we increasingly believe is really important to, people's self expression, mental health, physical well-being, is being outdoors. And do you do you and I know you're in the middle of trying to build a building, so which is a different thing. But for the outdoor component, do you see that your participants and the people who are farming or otherwise engaging in it really benefit in some way?
Diane Moss:Oh, yes. I mean, we we just went for a mental health grant because someone encouraged us to from the county department because they came and spent the day with us out at the garden and you just see how people interact with even when I left today, people had never seen collard greens growing from the ground. Ground. It's like what are those trees? I'm thinking collard greens.
Diane Moss:So people it's a it's just a healthy experience. And sometimes people come when the gate is open, people show up. Just And sometimes people come when the gate is open, people show up just to sometimes it's not about food. There's mental health, there's folks that have don't have homes. There's everything right around outside of our gates.
Diane Moss:We just open them and let everybody come in. And maybe they don't engage in the work that day, but if they're able to, I don't know, spend time with large butterflies, I think butterflies are bigger in the garden, or they come in and just sit and nobody bothers them because you're welcome. It's it's just it's a good place to be. Yeah. It's people in the neighborhood but also other caring people from other places.
Diane Moss:And it's a good space, good people and then we provide good food. So it's a trifecta of goodness if you will, right in the neighborhood.
Grant Oliphant:You know it's no surprise at all that you were invited to apply for a mental health grant because everything you just described is really how many of us come back to a a a space of experiencing mental peace. Right? And and, I'm curious what other examples you've seen. You know, the word that comes to mind as you were talking about that is kind of like magic. Right?
Grant Oliphant:The the the magic of owning your own food production, the magic of of, owning a relationship with nature. And I'm I'm curious what stories you would share with us of where the magic of this has especially made an impression on
Diane Moss:you? So I'm thinking it's it's every step has been really magical. We currently over the last few years have been an artist. Right? And so painting rocks, the interact we have a music wall where it's not just for children but adults are drawn right there.
Diane Moss:It's just, happiness in a space. I don't know, every day is a different opportunity at this garden. You never know. There are people, I speak one language but are all kinds of languages spoken and and we're doing some kind of communicating and people are smiling every day.
Grant Oliphant:You said something when we began, and, before we were before we were taping that I thought was beautiful and I have to I have to quote it back to you and and maybe this is how we'll we'll wrap up. But, you you you we were talking about doing this work and you joked, I'm past my prime. I'm just not finished. Tell us what you meant by that.
Diane Moss:So I have
Grant Oliphant:And, first of all, would you say it? Because you said it so much better than I did.
Diane Moss:I I I am. I'm past my time. So I sit in an office with everyone in the office other than me is in their twenties. Yeah. I'm in my sixties.
Diane Moss:I've seen some things come and go. Had different experiences. So the fact that we get to share, and and we don't always agree, but it's it's just it's a a I'm looking for my replacement. Every day that I'm doing work, I'm looking for who's the next person that's gonna come on or persons, to take on this role? Because we're opening up this door, this, urban ag work and then waiting for others or trying to build other bridges so that others can come and and continue the work and bring their, bring their perspective, I should say.
Diane Moss:There was a person that was introducing, and I guess this is a person with a personality, so how do I say this? They they use terms that it it's offensive to me. But the 20 something year olds, they relate to it. And I'm thinking, because I don't relate, doesn't mean like it's a bad thing. Let's find the road to compromise here and figure this out.
Diane Moss:They, just I'm a just say, this person calls themselves a vegan slut?
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Yes.
Diane Moss:And I'm like, so the point of this, of eating food is what? Right? But they all got it and said that there was that person's expression and that's what they needed to emphasize. I'm thinking, okay. I don't have to buy it but if it if it if it resonates with the folks in the room, I get it because we're at the end trying to do healthier food and if that's an entree, okay.
Grant Oliphant:Well, you're a you're a rare leader who can who can make room for that and, and I I just have to say, I commend you for for, willing to not put your personal feelings in front of your wisdom, and, you know, what you saw in terms of the the group's reaction. I asked you about young people before, and I think in the context of somebody like you who are I I don't mean to embarrass you, but you are uniquely joyful in the way you present. I walked into this room in one mood. I'm in a whole different mood right now. You you have this infectious, generous spirit, which you've maintained through some pretty hard times.
Grant Oliphant:And I'm curious as you think about your successors and the 20 year olds in the room, what are you seeing in them and their capacity to step into that part of the work? Because it's not just about the task. It's about it's about the spirit.
Diane Moss:So as we are looking to put a new person on our truck and interviewing folks, everybody's in their twenties that we're interviewing. So I'm trying not to say, okay, this is insurance gonna be a cost because they're in their twenties. But the thing is that they they bring is and what we found is, it's a certain lifestyle. Passion. You can't really it's not a 9 to 5 kind of job.
Diane Moss:We're, trying to make change in a community that can benefit from the change and you have to live a certain life. And if you don't, you're gonna burn out doing what it is that we do. But every day we find joy in working with one another and sharing thoughts and then just seeing signs of things getting better. At one point, schools and parks were not looking at gardens. That was over a decade ago.
Diane Moss:Now the embracing urban ag. Right? So I wanna position myself to advise the park and rec folks on what a community garden is. It's not just one thing.
Grant Oliphant:Fantastic.
Diane Moss:Yeah. Work to be done.
Grant Oliphant:What you hold up is examples of success. I just I I just have to say every minute of this interview has been a delight, and I am so grateful to you for spending the time here today, but more importantly for the work that you're doing for the community. So Diane Moss, thank you.
Diane Moss:Thank you. This has been good. Thank you.
Crystal Page:That was an excellent interview, Grant.
Grant Oliphant:She was extraordinary. Diane is Diane is an I mean, she's an extraordinary human being, but the joyful way in which she talks about this work and communicates the work is exceptional as well. I I loved every minute of talking with her.
Crystal Page:What was your favorite moment or story she shared?
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. I so I actually I think I loved well, that's this is hard, but I think the thing that stands out for me is the story she told about the neighbor who initially greeted the effort that she was undertaking by saying, why are you doing this? Why are you taking the place of a real, quote, unquote, real business? And what what she exemplified in talking about that, first of all, was her gentleness and but also her firmness. And I think what what that story told me is we are often confronted in this type of work with people whose initial impulse is to say it can't be done.
Grant Oliphant:Over and over again, it comes up, and the real leaders in this space are the ones who figure out how to forge ahead anyway. And there are plenty of stories of peep of people who don't make it, but nobody makes it without having the willingness to move past that naysaying. So that was that was one for me. What about you?
Crystal Page:No. I definitely agree. I feel like, we've all maybe been in that storm where it's like, oh, I don't know if I'm doing the right thing, and then here comes someone who Right. You know? And, nevertheless, she persisted.
Crystal Page:So I think that stood out to me. I also love how she talks about working with her board or her collaborative Yeah. In terms of, you know, she's like, I didn't know the financial piece, but I had to trust these other folks. You know? I I think that really represents what we as a foundation care about.
Crystal Page:Right? Collaboration, trust, really building out a community. And as someone who's also lives in Southeast, I just appreciate what she's doing because we all benefit from that collaboration and trust.
Grant Oliphant:I find myself these days thinking a lot about hope and how people keep going in the face of really difficult challenges. You know what she was describing about the systemic challenges she was up against is not just a food desert. It's food apartheid. It's a whole set of systems that, resulted in an entire community really being denied access to and awareness of, of the availability of of healthy food. And she transformed that.
Grant Oliphant:Utterly transformed that. Even right down to branding her district as the good food district. So she was not buying into the systems that that caused the problem in the first place, but she was changing them. And and what was powerful about that for me aside from the fact that I think that's the challenge in so many of the areas in which a foundation like ours works. But also because I think our society right now really struggles with how to feel hopeful about the future.
Grant Oliphant:The world's a kinda messed up place. You know? If you think about it, we've got we've got really difficult challenges that we're facing with wars, with, broken political systems, with division and divisiveness, with climate change, and it can feel like we're in this intractable place. Right? What's what's amazing about somebody like Diane is she figures out her piece, and she goes out and methodically changes that.
Grant Oliphant:And if you look at the history of change in the world, that's how it all happens. So I was just captivated actually listening to her talk about how she had done that work and how she thought about it. It's a it's a rare gift, to be able to to to see everything that's going on in the world with big systems and big challenges and still figure out the little ways in which you can make a difference and having it turn out not to be so little.
Crystal Page:Yeah. I really appreciated. In that moment, you 2 talked through kind of the steps she took along the way. Right? The fact that she said, you know, here's some land.
Crystal Page:I'm gonna build on this land, and then the for sale sign went up.
Grant Oliphant:Right.
Crystal Page:And then she's like, well, we don't have the money for that, but it just seemed like, to your point, she was very methodical. She just kept going. And as the challenges arose, she said, okay. Who can I work with? And, one thing that stood out to me when when, you asked her the question, it seems like foundations have played a key role in the work she's done both national and local.
Crystal Page:Is there anything you would want, like, our team or other philanthropists in San Diego to take away from her relationships with foundations and nonprofits?
Diane Moss:Well, I
Grant Oliphant:you know what? Thank you. I think that's such a great question. And and for me, part of her story that she willingly shares is that foundations made a difference in terms of raising, not only providing resources, but also raising the profile of what she was doing. So getting recognition, for example, from the Kresge Foundation, and and getting a name put to her work around equitable food, really made a difference in terms of of moving her and her organization to the next stage.
Grant Oliphant:And I I think foundations are so often prone to feel as though they they're they're just about the money or that they're, they're not that significant in the scheme of things. We can be. When we work with leaders like that, and when we're thoughtful about the ways in which we provide resources and help, and and resources can take all kinds of forms, that there is a there is a benefit that can come from that, and she's a model of it. You know, she is making a difference every day in her community in part because of the assistance that has been provided to her.
Crystal Page:Yeah. It's makes me wanna be a better person in whatever work I do. So thank you for inspiring us, and thank you for having Diane in to inspire, hopefully, anyone who listens.
Grant Oliphant:Well, thank you. You know, I I think it's important to note again that you you really brought the Leaders in Belonging program along that helped elevate Diane and her work. And it's an important story to tell in San Diego, you know, we are we are a community that is going to make a great future for itself by including everybody, refusing to accept things as they are, continuing to dream big, and leaning into doing big hard things. I can't imagine somebody who is a better example of that than Diane Moss.
Crystal Page:I agree. And I'd like to point out that our engineer was telling us that her last name's Moss, and it's perfect for you.
Diane Moss:Which is It borders on a dad joke. You know? Right. Yeah.
Grant Oliphant:Well, it's
Crystal Page:It borders on a dad joke. You
Grant Oliphant:know? Right. Yeah. Well, it's so funny. I mean, actually, you know, what what that brings up for me, Crystal, is, her extraordinary humility too is part of what I'm gonna take away from this interview.
Grant Oliphant:She is, she I she did this the very first time she spoke with me, and I mentioned this during the interview, but she talked about everybody who had in her life, who had recently died, who had helped her get to the the point that she was being recognized for. She shared that credit and that story, with, with them. And her incredible graciousness in general about, you know, literally it takes a village. That, she works with lots of people from from all walks of life and different ages, and she shares the credit with them. And I I think that's part of being a great leader, and her style of leadership.
Grant Oliphant:It's very inclusive. It's not totally self effacing, and it's, you know, it's very but it's very genuine in sharing credit with lots of different people, and I I loved that about her.
Crystal Page:I love it too. I feel like it's unique to San Diego or she's unique to San Diego. There are so many gems here in our region who, don't take credit. Like, there are 2 folks here in the region who organize with Cesar Chavez out in the fields, and they were like, every photo, they're in the photos. They don't always get the credit.
Crystal Page:I feel like Diane's like that. Like, she's this gem who Yeah. Hopefully, one day, she writes a book because there's so much wisdom to learn from that, but in the meantime, I plan to go to her garden and learn from her there.
Grant Oliphant:Yeah. Well and a a perfect example of this is when she was talking about generations, and I loved her story, by the way, about the the things she
Diane Moss:found offensive.
Crystal Page:Yes.
Grant Oliphant:And, you know, which is actually a very common sort of phrase among among the generation.
Crystal Page:You mean the vegan sluts? Yes. Thank you.
Diane Moss:Update for you.
Grant Oliphant:You know, among the 20 somethings who are working for her, she's just I I think it's funny that she struggled with it. I think it's funny that she called it out. And I love how she talks about being, past her prime, and yet she's not done yet. And I love that mix of saying, yeah. I'm looking for the next generation and how to bring them along, but don't count me out.
Crystal Page:No. I I think you're right on that because I think there's always been this stereotype of, like, boomer versus millennial. Now we've got these Gen z ers in in the work world, and instead of, like, a great war between them, she's like, what what how can I collaborate with you? And I I think that is the future we all need. Right?
Crystal Page:We're we're bummed out. There's so many horrible things happening, but if we can, work together, look, and mentor people, and vice versa decide to learn from folks like Diane Moss, our our future as generations will be a lot better.
Grant Oliphant:Well, that's a perfect place to end. Thank you.
Crystal Page:Thank you, Grant.
