In New Orleans, I got to collaborate with Feeding America and Second Harvest Food Bank by co-facilitating two co-creation sessions with DFA Tulane students and Broadmoor Food Pantry workers around pervasive issue of reducing barriers to access to food pantries for food-insecure individuals.
As a project manager, I derived insights from conversations between pantry volunteers that go above and beyond in connecting their neighbors to resources and food bank board members that are trying expand capacity to meet the needs of neighborhoods. Then, I helped the DFA Tulane studio translate these insights into prototype directions for an “ambassador program”, which would attempt to have select community members connect neighbors with food insecurity to the proper channels.
From this experience, I saw the potential of co-designing as a platform for community-based change. By dispelling the binary of “stakeholders” and “designers” and creating an environment for honest conversations, our collaboration was able to recognize bright spots that already exist and build upon the work already being done naturally.
