Health
Chicago Austin Youth Travel Adventures (CAYTA) is urging residents to ditch the “L” and take a trolley instead.
The West Side nonprofit hosts Austin Farm-to-Table Trolley Tours where neighbors visit community gardens, learn about health and wellness and see a cooking demonstration with a professional chef.
The predominantly Black neighborhood of 96,000 is considered a food desert — meaning residents don’t have easy access to affordable and nutritious food.
Austin native Crystal Dyer is dedicated to helping solve the public health issue.
“The people in Austin need the access to improve their health,” said Dyer, executive director of Chicago Austin Youth Travel Adventures. “I know so many people personally with different types of disorders from eating high-fat foods. (We want) to give people the opportunity to learn that we have gardens here.”
The trolley tours were made possible through a $30,000 grant from Austin Eats in partnership with Austin Fresh, which are highlighting 12 urban farms.
Dyer said healthy eating can be achieved by everyone without having to sacrifice culturally specific meals.
“My favorite is cabbage with okra,” Dyer said. “I can eat that all day long. I don’t need anything else because of the flavor and texture with a little spice.”
One of the trolley stops, PCC Austin Farm, makes shopping for those nutrient-rich foods more accessible to the community members who often have to make the trek outside of Austin to neighboring Oak Park.
“We actually have a retail store that we put there to answer the demand for fresh fruit and vegetables at an accessible price so that the community can come in, and they don’t have to get on a bus or get on a train,” said Dominique Stevens, senior manager for health and wellness at Windy City Harvest, the Chicago Botanic Garden’s education and jobs-training program. “I have two kids, and I couldn’t imagine having to bring groceries home on a train.”
The PCC food stand is stocked with fan-favorite greens like collards, mustards and kales among other locally grown and harvested veggies.
“I like to ask everyone who buys something I’m not familiar with cooking, ‘How do you prepare that?’ because that just helps me feed my kids healthier, feed myself healthier while still eating some of that culturally specific food,” Stevens said.
The Austin Farm-to-Table Trolley Tours run through October and are free for all Austin residents.